


Homecoming

by kriegersan



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Coming Out, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, F/M, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, One-Sided Attraction, Recreational Drug Use, Suicide Attempt, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-09-21
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:13:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4489719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kriegersan/pseuds/kriegersan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some people never really leave you.</p><p>(An extended Chloe study, and pre-game exploration of what Rachel and Chloe's relationship was like. Deals with depression, sexual identity, the complicated relationship with David and Chloe, and everything leading up to Max's eventual return to Arcadia Bay.)</p><p>POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR UP TO EPISODE 4.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Eve

_Hey. Can you meet me on the beach. Soon?_

_Why_

_I have to tell you something :(_

_NO EMOJI._

_:(_

_Fine. Be there asap_

Chloe’s legs carry her there of their own free will. Her brain hitches along for the ride. For the past month or so, it’s felt like the world just moves around her, her limbs sticking like she’s drowning in a melting bowl of sticky-sweet ice cream. I’m sorry for your loss. It gets easier every day. Whatever.

She calls to Joyce on the way out the door, “I’m going out”, and Joyce hmm’s over the white noise of the TV, a noise of acknowledgement, maybe. 

It’s orange outside. Pink. The sun behind the clouds, hiding away, ready for oncoming of night. Chloe’s Keds crunch gravel beneath them, she walks down the pathway to the sand.

Max is standing there, her ugly headband and knock-knees, and she tucks her phone in her pocket as Chloe approaches. They meet, about a foot between one another, and Max gestures to a bench where they quickly take their perch.

The lighthouse stands in solitude off in the distance. A seagull sounds ahead, making lazy loops over the water. 

Max takes a deep breath.

“Don’t hate me…”

Chloe clenches her eyes shut. “Hate you? Why? Oh, I get it, I’m such a Debbie Downer you don’t want to hang out with me anymore, right?” 

“Chloe…” Max looks at her hands. When she looks back up, there are tears in her eyes. “I don’t… know how to tell you this.” 

“I’ve had more than enough bad news lately. Trust me, dude, I can handle it.”

Max licks her chapped lips. Chloe watches her tongue slot back into her mouth. Then looks away. 

“My parents, I mean, we’re… Chloe, we’re moving away.”

“What?” Chloe shoots to her feet, turns on Max, who’s leaning inward, gut-punched. “Seriously? When?” 

“This weekend…” 

“And you couldn’t tell me a little in advance so that I had some fuckin’ time to prepare myself for my best--” Her voice catches,”--friend up and bailing on me too!?”

“I’m sorry!” Max starts crying, and all of a sudden Chloe feels like the biggest dick, dropping down beside her on the bench. She throws an arm over her smaller friend, pulls her against her chest. “I’m s-sorry, Chloe, I just. It’s been so hard. I didn’t-- you’ve been so--”

“Yeah… I know. Shut up, stupid.”

Her nose presses against Max’s neck, and she’s smells a little like sweat, but under that, the clean smell of that familiar shampoo. 

They sit there like that. Pink takes a deeper hue, night blossoms over Arcadia Bay. The whales call in the distance, a sad song echoing over the rolling waves, and it hurts. Just a long, aching, endless hurt.

Max’s fingers curl over her wrist. “Chloe. I promise I’ll call you and text you and write you letters every day, okay?”

“You promise?”

“Yeah! I promise.” Chloe pulls away, wipes her nose with the back of her hand. She wasn’t crying a little bit.

Max’s eyelashes are beaded with tears, a spider’s web glimmering with morning dew. 

“I’m never leaving you. Not really. We’ll be best friends forever.”

Chloe smiles, the dry corners of her mouth cracking with the effort. She tastes blood.

Forever means nothing to her.

* * *

She goes to school, but it doesn’t matter.

She eats at the diner, but it doesn’t matter.

Max texts her sometimes, a _Hey, thinking of you! :)_ , and she stares at it until the timestamp fades further and further into the past, the battery of her phone dies, is dead, and never coming back and--

It doesn’t matter.

She spends a lot of time at home on her computer. Sleeping. Her stomach clenches with hunger. Joyce isn’t around much, she’s working extra shifts to cover the expenses Da-- she’s working extra shifts, and Chloe doesn’t really have any friends or anything anymore, so there’s nothing to do but exist online. 

Exist. That’s all she’s doing.

She chats on forums about music, shows, watches videos of cool people in bands, doing drugs, getting drunk, making out, and she wonders if that’s what it’s like to be alive.

It’s three in the morning when Joyce comes home. Chloe can hear her put her keys away, her footsteps as she comes up the stairs. Chloe can’t be bothered to get up to turn the light off before she comes in to check, and Joyce sighs out her feelings in a cold gust.

“Chloe… what are you still doing up?”

Chloe turns her head. “I don’t know. Couldn’t sleep.”

Joyce frowns, slides herself through the doorway, stepping past mounds of dirty clothes to sit on the edge of her daughter’s bed. Chloe spins the chair to face her, her legs tucked up against her chest. 

“Want to talk about it?”

She shrugs. “Dunno. What’s there to talk about.”

Joyce clasps her hands on her knee. Her knuckles are white. “Well, you don’t really talk to me about anything these days. How are you... feeling?”

“Oh, God, Mom, are we gonna talk about our _feeeelings_ now?”

“Chloe, you don’t need to be so--”

“So what, Mom? Angry? You said you wanted to talk about our _feels_ or whatever, so this is me, talking.”

“Chloe, come on.”

“‘Come on, Chloe, come on’,” she imitates, her voice nasally, high and shaking. “There’s _nothing_ to talk about that you actually want to hear. You’re never even home anymore, so who gives a fuck.”

“ _Language_ , Chloe.” The muscle in Joyce’s jaw pulses. “I can’t afford our bills unless I take more shifts. I can understand that you aren’t happy about the situation, but we are _surviving_. We are still here. We can’t give up on life just because of what happened.”

“Why not.” Chloe kicks her feet out in front of her, bracket’s Joyce’s legs with her small, socked feet. “What’s the point.”

“William wouldn’t want--”

“I don’t give a _fuck_ what he wants! He’s dead, Mom, in case you haven’t noticed. He fucking left us!” Chloe’s nails cut into the skin of her palms. “He left me here in this bullshit town with you a-and _nothing_ and I just-- I can’t--”

Her eyes feel wet, for some reason. 

She sniffs, and her breath hitches, and she’s in her mom’s lap all of a sudden, and it’s like it all just breaks through. She’s getting snot all over Joyce’s work uniform, but it doesn’t matter, and it doesn’t even feel better to cry. 

She cries herself to sleep. Joyce puts her to bed like a child, flicks off the light as she leaves. For Chloe, it doesn’t turn back on.

* * *

Joyce is around less and less. Bills are stacking up. Text messages left unanswered.

_running late 2nite. luv u hun !!! xoxo_

Chloe eats dinner alone again. Watches _Blade Runner_ again. Thinks about cutting her hair short. Thinks about cutting her wrists. And punk bands. And not much else.

* * *

Chloe comes down for breakfast early one Saturday, and someone is sitting in her chair.

He’s got one asscheek hanging off, like he’s ready to bolt at the first sign of attack, ramrod straight, attentive, watching Joyce in her work uniform bustling around the kitchen. Bacon, eggs, and a generous helping of anxiety.

She suddenly feels weird in her sleep shorts, standing in the hallway, as he makes eye contact and leaps to his feet. The table chatters, his knees slamming the underside.

“Chloe!” 

An egg lands sunny-side down on the linoleum. Joyce stands cartoonishly still, caught in the act, the flipper still hovering at the edge of the counter.

“Honey... you’re not usually up so early!”

She contains a quip about Joyce’s late night. But just barely.

Chloe rounds the table, the man standing with his shoulders locked, fighting position, like he’s ready to shank her with his butter knife if he needs to. She picks up a piece of toast, already dripping with butter, shoves it into her mouth. 

“Sup bro,” she spits, around a half-chewed wad of bread.

“Chloe, dear, I’d like you to meet David. My new...”

“Friend,” he offers.

“Sup David.” 

She chews with her mouth open. Shows him the gory remains inside.

“Chloe.” He jerks his chin down to acknowledge her, turns his bewildered eyes on Joyce, searching for an answer in her reddening face. She flicks from Chloe to David, gestures for him to sit down. 

Yellow bleeds from underneath the long-forgotten egg, bacon sizzles, Joyce murmurs an, “Oh shit,” turning to clean up her mess. Her great big fucking mess.

David gingerly lowers himself into Chloe’s chair. He’s still eyeing the cutlery like she’s about to duel him for dominance.

Chloe sits opposite. It’s not like she wanted to sit in that chair anyway. 

“Now, I know it’s a bit… weird, Chloe, but you’ll be seeing David around a little more often.” Joyce drops a plate, crisp bacon, two broken eggs, in front of her. “You should, uh... get to know each other!” 

David forces a tight, military grade smile.

Chloe picks up a piece of meat, stares him dead in the eyes, and rips it apart with her teeth. 

She does not smile back.

* * *

It’s not even two months later and he’s become a permanent fixture on their living room couch. There’s an imprint the exact straight up-and-down size of him right in the center. 

Chloe spends more time in her room. She starts putting up posters. Bands she wants to see, one day. Maybe.

She looks at the growth chart on her wall. Scribbles everything out furiously. She is done growing.

It’s not like David is even really that bad, kind of weird, sticking close to the walls like Bongo used to do when there was another cat outside. He mostly keeps to himself, and he seems nice enough to Joyce, but Chloe can’t help but think, as her dad’s stuff slowly makes way for his, that she’s being phased out of her own life. 

She comes home one day from school, and he’s there, poring over the classifieds, circling ads with a felt-tip pen. Beside him, a notepad, endless scribbling, his knee jostling under the table. Two empty beers next to that, like punctuation; I am an asshole. Period.

“Hey,” she says, breezing by him, pulling the milk out of the fridge. 

He looks up, slowly, deliberately. Puts the pen down. “Chloe.” 

She drinks straight out of the carton, icy and cool down her throat. She can see his hackles rise. 

“Would you get a glass? That’s disgusting. And unsanitary.”

Out of pure mirth, she makes a point to lick the edges. 

He’s up in a second, bulldozing past her, ripping open the cupboard to unearth a glass. Chloe freezes, as David snatches the carton from her hand, pours the milk. The sound of the cup hitting the granite makes her jump, and he levels her with a stare over the counter. 

“Use a glass.”

“Not thirsty anymore,” she says, her mouth like the Sahara. Wasn’t Joyce supposed to be home already? 

“Drink it. You wanted it so badly you couldn’t be bothered to use a glass, after all.” 

He pushes it towards her, until the edge of the cup meets the lip of the counter. Her hands tremble at her sides.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Chloe says, priding herself on her mostly unwavering voice, “You’re not my dad.” 

His eyes crease.

“You’re right, little girl. I’m not your dad.” He steps back, crosses his arms behind his back, chest thrust forward. “But I am the man of this house, now. I expect my rules will be respected, and obeyed.”

Chloe opens her mouth to speak. Closes it. Bangs her hand on the counter, “Fuck you!”, and splits, tearing up the stairs, slamming her bedroom door behind her. 

Betrayal stabs up her throat, hot and fresh. The man of the house. It isn’t even _his_ house.

It’s quiet for awhile, as she buries her face in her pillow, before a soft knock sounds at the door.

“Chloe? I… won’t come in. I just wanted to apologize.” A regretful, quiet breath inward. “I wasn’t having a great day, and your attitude didn’t help. I know I’m not your father, and I’m not trying to replace him. I hope we can be okay one day. That’s… damnit, that’s all I wanted to say.”

His fist thumps the door one more time, a sigh, and she hears him pad off. 

One day. 

Definitely not. Definitely _never_.

* * *

“Chloe! _Chloe!_ You get back here right now!”

“Just-- leave me the fuck alone!” 

She takes off down the street. Joyce stops following as she turns the corner, and Chloe’s almost a little disappointed. Like she doesn’t care. 

“Go back to your shiny new husband, mom. Didn’t even wait for dad’s body to get cold.” She inhales shakily, beating down the pavement, walking aimlessly. “Enjoy your new life, you stupid bitch. Barf.”

Where to go, where to go. It’s getting dark, and it’s not like she really has any friends to hang out with. Chloe stops at the end of the street, thinks about turning back. 

Her phone buzzes.

_we r having a long talk when u come bk. i am not impressed. - mom_

Yeah… fuck that. She deletes the text, and keeps walking. And walking, and walking.

It seems like ages, and the junkyard rolls up under her feet. It’s kind of scary, seeing it at night. The hollowed out car frames almost seem sad, in a way, upholstery ripped like a wide, yawning mouth. There’s a fire crackling in nearby, some kids yelling, and Chloe pokes her head around to see who’s there.

Long blond hair, laughing, a few people she recognizes from school, a few she doesn’t. The air smells a little skunky, they’re passing a joint, bottles strewn about. A party. Or at least a small get-together. Something that regular teenagers do. 

Chloe instantly wants that. The first thing she’s felt in ages. She wants to be included.

She forces herself to round the car, approach the group. The blond girl notices her first, unlatches herself from the guy trying his best to covertly slip his fingers under the hem of her shorts.

“Hey!”

“Hey,” says Chloe, suddenly aware of how she must look. She hasn’t showered in days. 

The blond girl’s outfit, probably not even anything special, is way more awesome than anything she owns. Her shorts are so short, she smells like alcohol, fruity body spray. Like a summer breeze...

Chloe wants to crawl into her skin and wear her for a day. She’s really pretty. 

Her face is so, so hot.

Blond girl meets her halfway, grabs her hands with sticky fingers. “I totally know you. Chloe, right? We had English together last year. Remember me?”

“Sort of. Uh…”

“Rachel,” says the other girl. She smiles, eyes hazy. Chloe smiles back, a little. “Rachel Amber.”

“Rachel,” Chloe repeats, dreamily. 

“Oookay. C’mon, then! Let’s get this shit started.”

She’s suddenly tugged towards the gathering, tripping over her toes as she’s dragged along. A warm can is pressed into her palm by one of the guys, he’s a bit older than her, but hey, free beer.

They take seats on an old rusty car hood, a little away from the group. It’s cold under her ass. Chloe cracks the beer, watches Rachel dig around in her bag. It’s too much at once, she’s never even been actually drunk or anything before (sips of Mom’s wine totally doesn’t count), but she doesn’t want Rachel to think she’s a prude or a loser.

She sips her beer self-consciously. The rest of the group isn’t paying attention to her, thankfully. Chloe sets the can down on a car hood.

Rachel materializes beside her with a glass pipe, and a lighter. “Here, girl. Let’s chill you out. You seem kinda tweaky.”

“I know this is totally fucking lame, but I’ve never actually done this before.” Rachel’s eyes almost bug out of her head. “Fuck, I knew it, you’re so judging me. I know, I know--”

“Judge you? Seriously? I’m stealing your V-card! Holy shit! This is an epic moment of friendship establishment, Chlo. Get ready for your lesson, school’s in session, bitch.” 

“Yes, headmistress, I am eager to learn,” quips Chloe, and the smile she receives in return for her stupid fucking corny ass joke stops the breath in her lungs for a second.

Rachel turns the pipe in her palm, offers Chloe the mouthpiece. Her eyes cross to look at it. It’s blue, the glass a little dirty, packed full of fresh, green bud. It smells good. “I’ll tell you when to inhale. Go ahead.” 

She wraps her lips around the tip, and Rachel grins, holding the choke with her thumb as she slants the lighter down over it. “Okay, go.” Chloe starts to pull, getting nothing, until it’s almost too much when Rachel releases the choke. 

Her mouth and nose flood with heavy, dank smoke and Chloe pulls off, coughing, eyes watering from the heat. Rachel snorts, takes her own hit off the still-lit cherry, passing Chloe her beer with a free hand. 

It’s like everything slows to a sweet, quiet pull. The noise around her is like a soft bubble, nourishing her, wrapping her in something she hasn’t felt for ages. She can feel their energy pulsate under her, above her, Rachel at her side. It’s like her loneliness doesn’t exist, never existed, in a second, but it’s all-encompassing how alone she really is, in the universe. Fucking deep. It doesn’t feel bad, like it always does. Since...

Rachel grabs her hand. “Dude, you’ve been staring off into the distance for, like, ten minutes. You gonna tell me what’s going on in that big sexy brain of yours?”

“Oh,” Chloe offers, intelligently. She swallows. When did she sit down? “This is… um… actually really cool feeling. It’s like I’m floating. I probably sound fucktarded.”

“A little fucktarded. But I get you. Weed saved my life. I’m honestly totally not lying when I say that. It makes you… think about stuff.”

“Yeah. Stuff…”

“So, like, why are you out here anyway? I didn’t take you for the sleazy pit-party type.”

“I just needed to leave.”

“I get it. Parents?”

“My... mom got remarried.” 

“And her new husband is hella terrible, right?”

“Hella _fucking_ terrible.” Chloe takes another sip of her beer, well, tries to. She misses her mouth the first time, spills some down her neck. Hopes Rachel doesn’t notice. “I don’t know what she gets outta him.”

“Maybe she ‘gets’ his massive dong. All night, every night.” Rachel jerks her hips forward.

“Dude, gross!” Chloe laughs, despite herself, shoving Rachel lightly. She rocks away, then back into her side, their shoulders touching. It’s nice.

“Just trying to make you laugh, girl.” Rachel smiles, and it’s like being hit by the sunrise. Blinding. 

She offers the pipe. “Want more?”

Chloe shakes her head. “Kinda made my throat burn. Kinda... not sure I’m doing it right.”

“Oh? Lame.” Chloe’s gut crawls, and it’s weird and awkward for a moment, until Rachel perks up. “Wait, I can show you another way.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, just be ready to inhale.”

Rachel takes another hit, holds it, grabs Chloe’s chin before she’s aware of what’s about to happen.

She’s pulled forward, shifted off balance, her hand landing on Rachel’s thigh. The other girl’s lips touch hers, and she opens, and her heart’s racing, smoke pouring into her mouth through Rachel’s parted teeth. 

She inhales slowly, drinking the vapor out of her mouth, her fingers tensing against the bare flesh of Rachel’s thigh. It’s so soft.

“Good girl,” says Rachel, drawing away, slowly. “See! You’re a pro already. Love the chronic. Live the chronic.”

Chloe doesn’t move her hand. 

“Your phone is going buck, Chlo.” 

Rachel pokes the back of her knuckles. Chloe digs out her phone. Missed calls. Endless texts. Sudden overwhelming anxiety. She shouldn’t be here. 

_call me plz!!! chloe im not mad i luv u & want to make sure ur ok_

“Shit… my mom. I should probably go.” 

Chloe doesn’t move her hand. She’s not even sure she can stand up. Her forehead hits Rachel’s shoulder before she can stop herself.

“Okay, Miss Mega Stoner. Let me walk you home to mommy.”

It’s like Rachel doesn’t care about the group of people they’re leaving behind, as she half-carries her back towards her house. Chloe isn’t really sure how thrilled her mom is going to be when she shows up ripped out of her tree, but it doesn’t seem to matter. Rachel’s there. For the first time in ages, someone is _there_.

“So I’m gonna be honest,” she starts, turning up the next street, “I was really surprised when you turned up at our little shindig.”

“I was… surprised too.” Chloe stares at her feet. One in front of the other.

“You know I always thought you were cool. I know some shit’s gone down for you… um. Sorry, you probably don’t want to talk about this. But, I mean, you’re always welcome to come hang. If your step-dad is being shitty. Or just if you, y’know, want to.” Rachel laughs airily. 

“That would be cool.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

A car whips past them. The headlights stretch their shadows over the pavement. They’ll go on forever, endless. 

They make it to Chloe’s house, and Joyce is not entirely thrilled, but happy Chloe’s home safe, if not all that sober. She thanks Rachel, drives her home after Chloe’s been put safely to bed. 

She dreams of white wings, smoke. Perfume. _Rachel_.

* * *

Chloe wakes up with a killer headache and a text message.

_hey bitch! i got yo numba after u passed out. lol lightweight. this is Rachel btw. let’s hang sometime. i like your face xoxo_

She smiles, texts back:

_okay I GUESS we can hang even though you’re a total thief. jk I had a great time last night. thanks for smoking me out._

Her phone vibrates immediately.

_yesss no problem chica. btw u like alexisonfire?? i saw your pins. they’re playing warped tour this year, im thinkin bout goin. wbu?_

Rachel Amber is too perfect for words. Chloe almost squeals.

* * *

It’s not even two months later and Rachel’s become a permanent fixture in Chloe’s life. There’s an imprint the exact curvy, long-legged size of her right in the center of Chloe’s bed. 

They have a lot of sleep-overs, up all night listening to music, watching bad movies, Rachel talks about boys and Chloe mostly smiles and hides her eyes. They get high sometimes, too, and it makes Chloe forget about the monster in Joyce’s bedroom, burning stems and shake into the early morning hours, blowing the smoke through the bedroom window. Ghosting out into the night, in scattered shapes.

David doesn’t really seem to like or dislike Rachel, polite to her when they interact over meals. He more or less avoids Chloe, prowling around the house, shoulders to the walls, screaming in the nights sometimes, waking her up. 

Joyce tells her that it’s PTSD from the war, nightmares, or something, and later Rachel giggles, “Maybe your mom is going all ‘Deliverance’ on him. Squeal, piggy, squeal,” then Chloe swats her, Rachel’s slim fingers poking hard between her ribs.

Joyce seems happier. “I haven’t seen you like this since Max left. It’s good.” 

Chloe smiles more. Things are okay.


	2. Eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Disillusion. Chloe's sixteenth birthday. Small reconciliations. 
> 
> WARNING: The beginnings of sexual content occur here - I've left everything deliberately vague as the age of consent is 18 in Oregon. Also, characters display problematic viewpoints which in no way reflect my own. Also depictions of emotional abuse occur in this, so, tread lightly.

“Dude, dude, stop moving. Okay, cover your eyes.” 

Chloe tips her head back, her wet hair only half-up in a now-ruined hand towel. Rachel steps back, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and helps Chloe dry her hair. “Aha! I am a master. You look badass.”

There’s blue hair dye on the mirror in watery streaks, and Chloe stares at herself, and for the first time in years, sees the person she could become. It’s not done particularly well, but her fringe is blue, and she feels like a punk rocker. She feels cool enough to be Rachel’s best friend.

“My mom is going to flip her fucking shit.” 

“Chlo-ho, I told you. You never listen to me. Yes, she’s gonna flip, but when you eventually go totally Smurf and colour your whole head, she’ll like… only have a minor bitch fit then. So it’s like easing it in.”

“That’s what she said.”

“That is, in fact, what she said!” 

Chloe pushes her hair in a direction resembling flat, and Rachel hugs her from behind. Her fingers are blue, tipping down against her chest. Chloe holds her breath.

“Okay, you’re gonna be cool about tonight, right, yeah? It’s just at my buddy’s house, some cool people, tons of weed, hot guys...” Mirror-Rachel grins back at Chloe.

“Uh, fuck yeah,” says Chloe, and it only half sounds like she’s lying to herself. “20-bag says I can bang a hotter guy that you.”

“Bullshit. You’ve never even touched a dick.”

“I totally have.”

“Uh, I would know!” Rachel rounds along Chloe’s side, produces a hair dryer from underneath the sink. “Now sort out your hair situation, bitch. You’ve gone Super Saiyan.”

Chloe blow-dries. Rachel texts.

She shoves some newly-purchased condoms in her pockets as she leaves, taking off with Rachel into the evening. Joyce gets a text to say they’ll be back later tonight, but she probably doesn’t care anyway - off on a date with step-fucker. Good riddance. 

Music echoes down the street, people walking to and from, littering the sidewalk. Cars parked in angles, hugged into the curb, and Chloe stays close to Rachel’s heels. She’s been to a few parties now - she is Rachel Amber’s Best Friend (TM), after all. 

Twin brothers, parents out of town, are the hosts of this party. Chloe doesn’t recognize them from school. They seem to know Rachel, accept her with a smile and a high-five, and Chloe is greeted with a slap of a sweaty palm, the sudden wave of body heat and hazy smoke.

She watches Rachel weave through the people ahead of her, like she was born to move in that crowd, be a part of it, osmosed. She’s going too far ahead. Chloe’s head feels like it’s underwater.

“H-hey, wait!” Chloe panics, shooting her fingers out. 

Rachel’s there to catch her hand. She’s always right _there_ , waiting for her.

She turns back and smiles that _Teen Vogue_ smile, and everything is suddenly very, very fine.

They get to the kitchen, a circle with a few people lazily passing two joints in opposite directions. Rachel shoulders her way in, makes a space for Chloe.

Chloe fits perfectly against Rachel’s side.

“Sup ladies.” It’s a skinny skater boy with a pubestache. Chloe is not impressed. But it seems to be mostly his weed being shared, so she can’t complain. It’s good shit, she realizes, as the joint passes her way. “Need some beverages? Brewskis? The fridge is like… behind me. Shit, I’m leaning on it. I thought I was standing!” 

“Justin, Chloe. Chloe, Justin. This is Trevor, and--”

Chloe loses track quickly, takes the second joint and hogs two giant hits to herself. The blond girl who gets the stub after her isn’t entirely thrilled, but she can’t seem to care, as the world around her starts to soften. 

“Your hair looks totally dope, dude. Love the skunk streak.”

“Thanks man. Now can you stop flirting and get me a fucking beer?”

“Uh… yeah! We’re running out. One for each of ya. Remember later on when you’re mega-wasted how nice I was.”

“As if,” Rachel says, with a smile. She grabs Chloe’s hand and takes her to the next circle, the next pocket of people Rachel has chosen to shine her light down on. Chloe mostly stands around and feels kind of anxious but foggy, because these people are all strangers, but Rachel sticks to her side and keeps her involved in the conversation, and it’s more than she could ever ask for. 

Chloe’s kinda drunk in a few hours, sandwiched in the middle of a couch, Rachel on her left, and some hulking dude on her right, she doesn’t even know his name. They’re packing the bowl of a six-foot bong, and Chloe’s heart is fluttering, she desperately wants a hit off of that monster. Something to prove.

“Rachel! Who’s your friend!” 

A new arrival, an older guy, forces his way onto the couch beside Chloe. Hulk guy grunts and moves, and older guy looks down at Chloe. He’s got dark hair, and he’s skinny and sleek, tattooed with a face full of stubble. He grins. 

Chloe smiles back. 

“This is my bitch Chloe. She’s cool, not to be fucked with.”

“Oh, I can tell. I’m Damien. I like the hair, Chloe.”

Rachel gets the giant bong first, but passes it off to Chloe to hold the neck while she lights the bowl. This is her shining moment. 

Chloe sets her mouth to the opening, sucks hard as Rachel lights it, breathes every last bit of smoke into her lungs when the bowl is pulled. People are cheering, bong water sloshing onto the carpet through the stem. Damien high-fives her as she coughs her lungs out. 

Smoke billows out of her nose. She feels like a dragon. Powerful. Eternal. Effortless.

Rachel, kneeling on the floor, grips her leg. Chloe’s never been happier.

More weed. More booze. Three cigarettes, she bums one from Damien, and he kisses her in a corner away from the party, a few kids passed out on a couch. 

Chloe doesn’t really know how, just lets him fuck his tongue into her mouth, and his stubble kind of feels scratchy on her face. His hand is gripping her ass, pushing her leg between hers. The pressure feels kinda good, but it doesn’t feel _right_.

“You don’t really know what you’re doing, do you?” Damien says, against her neck, where he’s sucking a hickey into her pale skin. 

Where’s Rachel?

“What?” answers Chloe, her hands up at his chest. She doesn’t think this feels like it should. “No, just-- fuck, I’m high. Keep doing what you’re, uh, kissing.”

“How old are you?” he asks, flatly. 

“S-sixteen. In a month.” 

“Shit.” His hands fly off her waist like she’s been dipped in acid. “You’re a fuckin’ kid.”

Her face burns. “And you’re a fuckin’ ancient piece of shit! Get the fuck away from me, pig.” 

She shoves him, stumbles forward. She doesn’t feel the least bit rejected. Not at all. 

“Rachel?” 

Chloe wanders upstairs, her knees feeling wobbly, and there’s a series of closed doors. She peers into a bathroom, finds some older kids leaning over the counter, powder, snorting and giggling and high out of their minds. No Rachel.

Further down the hall, she opens a bedroom door, a couple fooling around on a bed, quickly snatching up their clothes as her face peers in. No Rachel.

Finally, in the last room, the door cracked, and Chloe watches for a minute, her best friend on her knees in front of some guy. She feels sick, closes the door, leans against the wall and waits.

He walks out first, heads down the stairs, Rachel a few moments later, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. “Chloe! Were you… there the whole time?”

“Yeah.”

“You stalker, you!” Rachel smiles, it doesn’t reach her eyes, and Chloe feels ice line her spine, down to the soles of her feet. “What happened to that guy who was with you?”

“Obviously, not with me anymore.”

“Probably a good thing. Ugh. My guy totally jizzed in my mouth and didn’t even let me know it was coming. I hate it when they do that shit. Tastes like ass.” 

Chloe stares a hole into the wall. “Can we fucking go? Like _now_?”

“God, Chloe, when did you turn into such a prude?”

“ _Fuck you_.”

“Wait, Chloe--”

Chloe storms off. Rachel follows.

She’s halfway home when she finally stops, Rachel’s been calling her name this entire time, growing increasingly more whiney, strained from the smoking, the partying, the di--

The lights are on in a few houses, and she can hear the party echoing against the trees behind her. Night moves around them. 

Chloe turns. “What, Rachel? What the fuck are you gonna say to me. What possibly could you say, aside from, like, ‘Chloe, I totally abandoned you to guzzle cum because I’m a giant slutbag’? Fuck you. You ditched me!” 

“Alright, fine.” Rachel looks her dead in the eye. Inhales noisily. “Chloe, I totally abandoned you to guzzle cum because I’m a giant slutbag.” 

Chloe eyes her and tries not to smirk. Bitch.

“That what you wanted to hear?” Rachel drops her hands by her sides, and there’s a hot pink stain of liquor on her cream-coloured shirt that Chloe can’t stop staring at. “I’m fucking sorry for leaving you. I thought you’d be okay with that guy. I guess I thought wrong. My bad.”

Chloe holds it in. She doesn’t want _that guy_ , she wants Rachel. 

“I’m sorry,” Rachel says, weakly, peering up through her bangs. Chloe closes the distance between them and hugs her best friend. “You’re my girl. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“Just don’t fucking do that again, dude. I freaked out.” 

“I know, Chloe. I’m sorry.”

They start walking to Chloe’s house. Her fingers twined in Rachel’s, the only home she needs.

* * *

“Happy Birthday, Chloe.”

David sets down a cake in front of her. Sixteen candles. She can tell he’s not entirely thrilled to be a part of this, a grimace carved into his stony face. Rachel and Joyce clap and sing, and Chloe blows out the candles. She doesn’t make a wish.

Joyce hands her a knife and she starts cutting slices of the cake, Rachel picking off the candles and sucking the icing from the base. She drops them like chicken bones on the edge of the tray.

“So, what’re you going to buy with your birthday money, Chloe?” asks Joyce, and she seems a little stiff. Probably because of how on edge David’s been all day. Even more than usual.

Chloe stares at the thick, fluffy slice in front of her. Devil’s chocolate. She doesn’t even like chocolate. Probably David’s favorite type. Joyce made it.

“I was thinking probably a car. That would be hella tight.” Rachel nods enthusiastically. “I mean, I have to get my provisional license first but--”

David loudly, audibly snorts. Chloe stares, knife slippery in her sweaty palm. 

“Something funny, David?” Joyce asks, deliberately, and Rachel glues herself to the back of her chair. She’s been there a few times, now, when him and Chloe get into it.

“Nothing.” He smiles, but there’s no humor in it. “I mean, if she can even afford a car. After she blows all of her money on drugs.”

Chloe’s heart drops, and Joyce turns on her questioningly. Do they really have to bring this up _now_? For once, she’s glad she doesn’t have more friends.

“Drugs, Chloe? What does he mean by that?”

“Let me speak. I found Chloe’s stash in my garage this morning. A quarter of a pound of weed, and those two bottles of wine we bought that went missing last month.”

“That was me, I did it,” interjects Rachel, but David raises a hand to silence her immediately. 

“Chloe. Do you have something to say for yourself?”

“Yeah, sure. Just that I decided I’m going to spend my birthday money installing fucking _bars_ in my bedroom window. Would that make you happy, step-Führer? Happy birthday to m--”

“You watch your attitude, young lady. Joyce might put up with your shit, but I refuse to.”

“David--”

“And I refuse to let you push me the fuck around on my fucking birthday!”

“Now, can we please just--” Joyce goes to stand but David slams his hand on the table, the dishes rattling in terror. 

“Chloe, you’re grounded. One month. For stealing, lying, _drugs_ , and this piss-poor attitude you have right now.” 

Tears threaten to rise, and she feels like such a fucking idiot in front of Rachel, knife quivering in her hand. She knows that even if she tried to cut him, he’d put her down with some bullshit military hold. And it would just make Joyce sad. 

“Now, David…” 

“Quiet, Joyce.” 

She closes her mouth.

He rises to his full height, leans forward, shoving his finger into Chloe’s face, and she has the sudden urge to bite it the fuck off. Watch it spurt blood, see him panicking and helpless. 

His voice is low and menacing. “If I _ever_ catch you with drugs again, I will kick you to the curb so quick you’ll get goddamn road rash. You got that?”

“I hate you,” she mumbles, and it’s choked and wet in her throat. His eyes crease, and he sets his hands on the tabletop, fidgeting and unsure. Chloe throws the knife down, spins on her heel and takes off upstairs.

Joyce sighs, long and tired. “Rachel… I should take you home.”

Rachel nods, and stands up, knees shaking.

The cake sits out on the table for the rest of the night, untouched, and unwanted.

* * *

Joyce finds Chloe up in her room, later, knocking gently at the door. A quiet noise of assent.

There’s more permanent marker on the walls now, fresh bruises on her thighs, hidden under her pants. Joyce sits heavily on the edge of the bed, Chloe’s back facing her, shoulders tight and fragile.

“Chloe… honey. I’m sorry that happened the way it did.” She touches Chloe’s arm, her daughter cringing away. “I talked to David. He says he’s sorry for overreacting.”

“Fuck David. And what the hell do you care? You didn’t stand up for me.”

“How was I supposed to? How? What did you want me to do? You put me in a shitty situation. Drugs, Chloe?”

Chloe curls in on herself. “Whatever, Mom. Everyone smokes weed.”

“I don’t care about ‘everyone’. What I care about is the fact that you lied to David and I, _stole from us_ , and--”

Chloe bolts upright, inches away from Joyce’s face, seething. “I don’t fucking _care_ about David! He’s a facist piece of shit, and you only married him because you were desperate. _Fuck David_. You let him ground me for a month _on my birthday_. Fuck you, Mom.”

She crashes bonelessly back onto the bed, breathing hard, face to the wall.

Joyce’s mouth is a flat line, her eyebrow quirks. “Well. I was going to tell you that you were only grounded for two weeks, but now I’m not so sure.” She stands, pacing off to the door. “You could use some time to think about what you’ve done. Alone.”

“Go away.”

Joyce turns at the door, face creased in sorrow. “I love you Chloe. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

“Just leave me alone.”

She turns the light off on Chloe, again.

* * *

_hey dude. how’s it?? i miss you :( :( :(_

_week and a half left. it’s super fun with no tv, no computer, no friends, no going anywhere but school. super cool. my autopsy results: death by boredom_

_rip_

_rude. they let me have my phone back at least. for ‘emergency’ purposes. david is so paranoid lol_

_david is a dick. can you sneak out?_

Chloe stares at her phone. The house is dead silent.

_gimme 30. where u wanna meet_

_junkyard?_

_kk_

* * *

It’s cold outside. Chloe didn’t have the balls to grab a jacket from the front entranceway, packed on a few sweaters instead, holding herself against the night chill. The grass around the train tracks is covered in frost, and her breath fogs the air as she presses onward.

She can’t see Rachel right away, flips her a text.

_da fuck are you_

_come to the shack!! hehe_

She obeys. There are curtains put up in the little doorways, and Rachel pokes her nose out.

“Surprise!”

“What’s the surprise? A shitty pile of shit garbage? Is that supposed to be a metaphor for my _literal_ shit life? Shocker.”

“Shut up, you dink. Come inside!”

Rachel’s put up blankets and posters, there are a few benches and chairs inside too. Rachel’s trusty bong on a makeshift table, freshly loaded bowl. Braided friendship bracelets. An old boombox playing a mixtape Chloe made for her.

“I call it American Rust. Our home away from home.” Rachel sets her hand on her waist, cocks her hip. She’s glowing. “Are you impressed?”

Chloe holds herself in the entrance and shakes.

Rachel wilts, steps forward to take Chloe’s nervous fingers. “After step-douche’s little power trip, I figured we needed somewhere else to go. Just for us.”

Chloe starts crying. She can’t help herself.

“Oh my God, bitch! Don’t cry on me! It was really no big deal! Actually, I got a splinter from dragging that fucking bench in here, you so owe me, but-- Chloe, it’s okay. Hey, come on, it’s okay.”

She’s crying like a stupid little kid in Rachel’s arms, but this is all she could’ve ever asked for in her life -- a safe place, somewhere she can be alone. Somewhere she can be with Rachel.

“I’m here. I’ve got you.” Chloe sniffles noisily into Rachel’s shirt. “Girl, you just need to blaze.”

They pass the bong back and forth until there’s just ash, and Chloe doesn’t feel so empty inside anymore. Or maybe more empty. She’s really not sure. Maybe just numb. Also hungry.

Rachel cuddles up beside her, and they drape a blanket over both their knees. Rachel’s head hits her shoulder. Her hair tickles Chloe’s cheek.

“Happy belated birthday, Chloe.”

Rachel lifts her head to look Chloe in the eyes, and Chloe feels this aching, endless blue void inside herself. It ends in the hazel yellow of Rachel’s irises. Like being touched by the sun.

She leans forward and kisses her friend chastely on the lips. Rachel doesn’t pull away.

When Chloe sits back, wanting to kill herself, shit, she fucked everything up now, Rachel just smiles. 

Chloe lives for that smile.

* * *

Three weeks have passed.

Chloe and David sit, stilted, over breakfast. Joyce makes mindless conversation, with mostly herself, forcibly ignoring the tension in the kitchen.

“Chloe,” David starts, setting his coffee down. “As you know, today is the last day of your grounding.”

“Yep,” she deadpans, scrolling through her phone. 

He clears his throat. “Could you come outside with me?”

Alarm bells go off in her head. 

“Yeah, uh, sure.”

She follows him out through the front door, skittish and uneasy, as he stands off to the side on the front step.

There’s a great, beige monstrosity sitting next to his ugly muscle car. Chloe scowls, turns on him for answers. 

He heaves out a sigh. “I know things haven’t been the easiest between you and I. Think of this as a peace offering. And a birthday gift. From me.”

“Two-for-one type deal? Am I allowed to call you a cheapskate?” There’s only a hint of mirth there.

He crosses his arms, smirks despite himself. “Only if I’m allowed to call you a stubborn ass.” David clears his throat. “You’ve kept your head down. You’ve been going to class. You got your license. You’ve been keeping in line. Realistically, you were probably doing it all to spite me, but... instead, you’ve earned back some of my respect. Good work.”

He reaches into his pocket and produces the keys. She takes them from his fingers, their hands touching for a moment. They barely ever touch -- it’s weird. 

“Your mother and I put the papers in your name. She’s your responsibility, Chloe.”

Chloe holds his eyes, and it’s weird and uncomfortable. She doesn’t _want_ to like David.

“And so, to buy my continued obedience, you give me a shitty truck. Did it cost you a whole nickel? Nice step-parenting skills, step-Jew.” 

David rolls his eyes. Chloe tries not to smile. Really tries.

“I’m kidding. It’s… y’know, cool.” She sticks her hands in her pockets to keep them from moving. “My first car.”

“It’s a piece of shit.” He laughs, dryly. Chloe tries to ignore it. “Get out of here, Chloe, before I revoke my generosity. Take your little friend Rachel for a spin in your new wheels.”

“You mean my new, old, rusty deathtrap? You might as well send a tow truck in advance.” Chloe almost skips to the driver’s-side. “And an ambulance!”

Slamming the door behind her, Chloe wiggles excitedly in her seat. It is a piece of shit. But it’s _her_ piece of shit. 

Cranking down the window, Chloe pokes her head out. “Thanks, step-David!”

“Try not to crash it,” he calls in return, and it’s kind of weird to not totally hate his guts, entirely. 

Joyce is behind him, smiling, hopeful. Nervous. “See, I told you it’d work.”

She backs out of the driveway, only rolls up onto the curb a little, and feels like things are maybe starting to be better.

Maybe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've written 15K of this sucker so far, so I'll try to keep to a weekly update schedule! Comments and kudos are appreciated, as always.
> 
> If you want to chat, hit me up at highandholy.tumblr.com. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed.


	3. Sunlight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe's good at running.
> 
> (WARNING: This chapter features underage drug use, drinking, depictions of domestic abuse.)

She comes home one afternoon and things are… tense. Weird. Joyce is at the dining table, David speaking in a low monotone. Chloe silently darts up the stairs, sitting at the very top so that she can still hear.

“Joyce, just let me see it. If you say you have nothing to hide, then you have nothing to hide, and you won’t mind showing me.”

“I’m not comfortable giving you my phone, David. It’s really none of your business. I’ve done nothing to deserve this.” 

“I don’t buy that. You’re hiding something.”

“Jesus, David, am I a suspect or your wife? Fine, you know what, take the fucking thing, here.”

The noise of hard plastic hitting the table. Silence, save for fingernails clicking buttons. 

“You’re being extremely paranoid. I swear I’m not hiding anything from you.”

“I’ll decide that for myself, thanks.”

David stalking off to the garage. 

Chloe slinks up to her bedroom, phone in hand. She has to tell Rachel.

* * *

It gets worse. 

Chloe spends more time at the skate park with the guys, in the junkyard, skipping class. Avoids home, her walls too thin to ignore the yelling. She’s with Rachel most of the time, save for school, because Rachel insists on sitting through boring AP classes and shit. Who cares.

She starts going out of her way to pick up weed by herself, from the cagey guy in the RV. He’s intense, but reliable, and there’s something about the look in his eyes that makes her wonder if he’s like her - bruised and gooey in the center, bone white and hard on the surface. 

He’s got cool tattoos. Chloe starts saving for one of her own. Sketches it out. A sleeve would be cool.

It’s noisy at home. The arguments continue to escalate.

Chloe sits at the dinner table and pretends to ignore their passive aggression over leftover pasta and wilted salad. She slurps noodles as David’s hands clench on his steak knife. 

One more hour. One more hour and she can leave, for the entire weekend. A camping trip, a cool group of people, an entire tent just for her and Rachel. She feels kind of weird about this - they didn’t talk about what happened before, Chloe doesn’t really know where she’s at. Rachel just acts like nothing changed.

Her phone buzzes on the table. Speak of the devil.

David’s focus is on her in an instant. “Chloe, no cell phones at the table. You know the rules. Hand it over.”

“Oh, let her be, David--”

“Joyce--”

“It’s just Rachel, man,” says Chloe, “I’m waiting for her to get here so we can, y’know, go.”

This garners a blank stare from either adult.

“...We’re going camping? We talked about this like three freaking times, Mom.”

“Oh, shoot. I forgot that was this weekend.” 

“Well, you never told me about it.” David does not sound happy. “Where are you going? With whom? Is there parental supervision?”

“David, Chloe and I have already talked about it. She doesn’t need your approval, I said it was fine.” Joyce sets down her water glass, gives him a pointed look. He is positively _boiling_.“She’s going with Rachel. I trust Rachel.”

“I wouldn’t put my faith in that girl’s judgment, Joyce. Chloe’s missed enough class lately, and her attitude leaves a lot to be desired. Not so sure Rachel’s a good influence.”

“If you knew Rachel at all, you’d know she’s a polite kid with good grades.” Chloe’s not really sure why Joyce is standing up to David, all of a sudden - maybe she’s finally had enough of his bullshit. “If anything, she’s a good influence. Don’t blame her for Chloe’s mistakes.”

Chloe stares at her truck keys on the table, split into metallic, jagged fingers beside her glass. 

Chloe’s mistakes.

Her phone buzzes again. With the focus off her, she flips it open under the table, reads the texts from Rachel:

_omw to you. got the camping supplies. ;P_

_chloeee i have to pee at yours i’m dyin--_

She can’t finish reading, her phone snatched out of her hand. Chloe reaches for it, but David holds her back with a forearm like an iron bar. 

“Give me my fucking phone, dude!”

“‘Camping supplies’, hm? Are those code words for drugs, Chloe? What the hell makes you think you can lie straight to my face?” 

"I'm not fucking lying to you!" Chloe strains desperately for her phone, held captive in David’s big hand. She can see Rachel’s texted her again, but she’ll never get to return it.

She’s honestly a little surprised when Joyce plants herself between them, crossing her arms, chest out. “Don’t you dare talk to my daughter like that.”

“She needs to hear it, Joyce! You’re too easy on her, and she walks all over you.”

“David, I am more than capable of parenting my own daughter. _Do not_ accuse her of anything without proof.” 

Chloe feels increasingly outside herself, like she’s viewing Joyce and David through a tunnel. Joyce’s shoulders, protecting her, squared off, seem mountainous in the distance. 

David’s voice grows louder. Joyce rises to the occasion. David is screaming in her face. Chloe starts, tries desperately to separate them. "Just stop it!"

Something sharp screams past her ear, and she flinches, turning hard on her side. Her hip slams the kitchen table, and everything quiets to a dull roar, like waves lapping at the shore. 

A breath.

“Fuck-- Joyce, I _did not_ mean that.”

Ground zero, the remains of her cellphone, shattered to pieces from the impact. The wall bears a fresh wound, the product of David’s rage. 

Joyce is cornering David in a second. “ _Get out of my house_.”

Chloe peels out the door, to the truck, where everything’s already loaded. Rachel’s walking up the driveway, duffel in hand, and she shouts and piles in, noticing Chloe’s haste.

They drive for five minutes in dead silence, before Chloe shrieks, bangs her fists on the dash, swerving all over the road.

Rachel reaches over to hold the wheel steady. 

She settles down once they’re out of Arcadia Bay, face pulled into an ugly scowl, white-knuckle grip. Rachel puts on some music, something Chloe likes, and it seems to help as she bobs her head along.

“So… what happened?” asks Rachel, scrolling Facebook in the passenger seat. She only has one eye on the screen.

“I told you Mom and step-shit were fighting, right. I think she might’ve actually dumped his ass.”

“Dude! Do you wanna go back?”

“Fuck no. Deal with their shit? No way.”

“I mean, is your mom gonna be okay?

“Rachel, I honestly do not care right now. I don’t want to talk about it. Just fucking drop it.”

Rachel sits quietly for a moment, pretends to check her Instagram. Smiles to herself. “Hey… at least we have the ‘camping supplies’.”

“Oh shit yeah! I totally forgot. Not gonna lie… pretty excited to roll.”

“Me too. Best weekend ever!”

“Best weekend ever.”

Rachel reaches for a fist bump, Chloe knocks her knuckles and pretends that nothing else exists outside of this. Nothing.

* * *

They drop E for the first time together as the moon rises, lit red by the campfire, half of their little crew wasted already. A few people have come in trucks, just for the night, doors open, music booming out, the noise permeating their little tent city. Someone’s got a crossie going, three points blooming smoke in the midnight air. It’s perfect.

They’re sitting around the campfire when it kicks in for Chloe, a sudden rush up her neck, synapses firing, over her ears, like fingers gently pulling a hood over her eyes. Her beer feels ice cold in her fingers, licking her palms, and she laughs, it’s fucking weird, but she just wants to touch. Wants to feel. Like the pathways to her heart dilate as wide as her pupils, finally pulling loose the barriers she’s spent years carefully constructing.

Rachel, across the fire, kicking a hacky sack with a few of the guys and girls, a pure beam of endless light. It’s like there’s an aura cocooning her in calm, and Chloe wants to reach out and put her hands through it, taste Rachel with her fingers.

Every sense is on fire, and it’s like everyone around her is holding her steady. It’s the most peaceful she’s felt in years, since…

She rises out of her chair and wobbles forward, her friends reaching out to catch her before she nosedives into the fire pit. There’s a community here, she feels wanted, like everyone and everything in the universe is trying to push her forward.

Rachel, whose small hands reach out to soothe her. “Chloe! Do you feel it too?”

“I am hella fucking high right now, dude.”

“Me too! Oh my God, this is like the most amazing thing. I’m so happy I could die right now and be happy because I’m that happy.”

Rachel’s skin is so soft. Not like that guy at the party, she doesn’t like that as much as she likes Rachel’s sunflower eyes, summer kissed skin, smooth under her hands.

They dance to tinny music for what feels like forever, notes and rhythms washing over them, visceral, thriving. Sweat pours down Chloe’s face, tongue dry as ash, Rachel’s laughter like ringing bells, arms over her head in ecstasy. People are passing out, hitting their tents, and Rachel and Chloe are forever, always, eternal. 

It’s quiet now, the early hours of the morning, Rachel throwing rocks into the lake, watching the ripples grow. Chloe has her bare toes in the wet sand, like she’s a plant, sucking up all the knowledge she could ever need from the earth.

“I don’t want to go home,” she says, her mouth sore and tight. “I want to stay like this forever.”

With you. 

It goes unspoken. Rachel already knows.

“We could, Chloe. Move to LA. I can model, you can be a rockstar.” 

She releases another stone out into the distance, singing over the water. She never hears it submerge.

“We’d get a loft together by the ocean.” 

“Feel the LA breeze on our skin. And you could get a new kitten!”

“We can just smoke weed all day, listen to shit and hang out and it’s like--”

“--nobody else can even touch us.”

Chloe reaches for Rachel’s hand. Her fingers feel like an extension of her own, like they’re sewed together through their veins twining, bound. 

Rachel smiles at her, sunbeams and dark circles, like bruises under her eyes.

“Come…” Chloe licks her lips. “Come back to the tent. With me.”

A few moments of pause, and Rachel nods, tucks her hair behind her ear, follows Chloe’s heavy footsteps back to their slumbering group. 

Chloe battles the tent zipper for a few long, cuss-filled minutes. 

Finally inside, she holds her breath. 

Rachel presses against her side, and in seconds, they collapse into a heap of limbs, so close it’s like they’re trying to absorb each other. 

Rachel’s mouth is hot on her neck, against her collarbone, fingers brushing her waist trying to touch every inch of skin there is. Chloe kisses her mouth, messy and wet, like Rachel’s hiding all her secrets somewhere down her throat, past her lungs, her _heart_ , somewhere, deeper. Deeper.

Everything fades.

In the late morning, Rachel’s at her back, spooned up close, playing with the tufts of strawberry hair by Chloe’s ears. She wakes, batting the hand away, Rachel’s nose coming to settle on Chloe’s shoulder.

“Mm.”

“Good morning, my sleepyhead.”

Chloe squirms onto her back in the tight confine of their shared sleeping bag, and Rachel’s looking down on her, and she’s fond and friendly, but there’s sadness there. An ache. Deeper.

“Chloe…”

Chloe stares up at her, at those sad doe eyes, and something settles hard and heavy on her chest. Oh.

“Yeah… I know.” She closes her eyes, swallows everything up.

“I’m sorry.” Rachel’s hair seeps down her face, tickles Chloe’s cheek. “We were both really high. It felt good, but I--”

“ _Rachel_. Just. Forget... it ever happened, okay?” She hates how weak she sounds.

Chloe opens her eyes, reaches up. Gently brushes Rachel’s hair off her face. 

Rachel turns her face into Chloe’s palm. “You know I love you, right, Chloe?”

The flush of her cheeks, her lips part. It’s too much. 

Chloe sits up, forcing Rachel to shift off her, to her knees. She starts getting her shit together. Rachel seems uneasy, but she doesn’t try to stop her. 

Chloe pulls on her jacket, fights her way out of the tent. Leaves Rachel in the ruins of last night.

* * *

She doesn’t go home for awhile, after that. Sleeps in her truck. Gets shitfaced. Gets blazed. Breaks shit. Cries. Alone.

Some days pass, and she’s starting to smell bad. Washing clothes in gas station sinks, pink hand soap and cold water, well, it only gets you so far. She’s fucking hungry and out of cash. She’s not as tough as she thought, apparently.

It’s early in the first strain of morning, before Joyce’s shift even starts, and Chloe’s waiting in her truck across the street. Joyce pulls into the parking lot, gets out of the car. She shoulders her handbag and looks out on the sun rising. Unlocks the front doors.

The lights flicker on inside.

Chloe opens the door and steps out.

Joyce is brewing coffee when Chloe takes a seat at the bar top. They don’t speak, Joyce setting down a steaming cup in front of her daughter.

Chloe takes a sip. Joyce’s silence makes her feel so terribly small.

“I’m glad you’re okay, Chloe,” is all Joyce says, at first. “I was really worried about you.”

Joyce’s hand crosses the counter, covers Chloe’s. Like a reflex, her hand balls into a fist. 

“I’m sorry,” she croaks, “I didn’t know what to do.”

“Did something happen between you and Rachel? She kept calling, asking for you.” 

“Can we... not talk about that?”

“Okay.” Joyce takes her hand back uneasily, busies herself prepping for breakfast. “Did you want to talk about what happened the other night?”

“Not really. But I guess we probably have to.” 

“Yes, Chloe. We do.”

Joyce rounds the counter, sits down alongside Chloe. Their knees touch, and Chloe has this sudden urge to throw herself into her mother’s lap like a little kid. She resists. 

“David and I are still together.” 

Chloe can’t say she’s surprised.

“He’s getting some counseling, honey. He’s got some things going on in his head that aren’t right. He told me some of what happened during his tours and I-- I feel like I understand him better now. We’re working on it.”

“Well, I, for one, am thrilled for the happy couple.” 

Joyce sighs with frustration. “Chloe, I know things haven’t been easy. I’m not saying you two have to be the best of friends, but I’m sick and tired of feeling this way. I want to be happy. I want us to be a family. David wants that, too.”

“Yeah, I’m hella fucking sure David wants a totally fucked up piece of shit step-kid.” 

“Chloe… I know it may not seem like it sometimes, but David cares for you. Very deeply, in his own way.” 

Chloe pretends to be very distracted by her cup of coffee, her hands clenched around the hot ceramic. 

“I’m sorry.” Joyce’s voice is strained. “I know I made some decisions that if-- if I could do it all again, maybe I’d do differently. But I don’t want to lose another husband. And I don’t want to lose you.”

“Mom…”

Joyce sniffs, dabs her eyes with the back of her hand. “I know, honey. I just want you to come home.”

Chloe curls in on herself protectively. “He fucking threw my phone at my head.”

“I know, Chloe. We can get you a new one.”

Chloe’s not sure why that makes her feel so hollow.

She slumps down onto the counter as the first customers filter in, take their posts. Joyce drops a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her nose, and she doesn’t waste any time scarfing it down, stomach gnawing.

Joyce sends her home to shower and sleep. David isn’t there, thankfully. She takes a long, hot shower, smokes a skinny, poorly-rolled joint, hanging out of the bedroom window. Crashes hard until the evening, the slamming door jolting her out of sleep.

She puts in eyedrops before heading downstairs, finding David and Joyce speaking in low tones in the kitchen.

David freezes, like he did that first day. “Chloe.”

“Hi.”

He gestures to the table. “Can we talk?”

Joyce takes up a chair at the head of the table, the mediator. Chloe schools her expression. David fidgets in his seat.

“What happened the other night… I overreacted.” His hands are clasped on the table before him, and he keeps switching the twine of his fingers. “As your mother may have explained to you, I suffer from-- ‘issues’. When provoked, these ‘issues’ can cause outbursts.”

“I didn’t provoke you.”

“Excuse me?”

Chloe looks at her mother’s face. The hole in the wall.

“...Never mind.”

He nods. Acceptance. “Anyway, Chloe. I’m trying to apologize to you. I’m sorry.” He reaches across the table and tentatively grips her hand with his own. 

Chloe stares at it like her arm’s been amputated.

“I promise I’ll work on it. If you promise not to push me. Okay?”

It’s really not okay. All he’s given is half-assed half-promises, but Joyce is giving Chloe this _look_ , like all she wants is for things to go back to normal. Maybe that’s all Chloe wants too. Whatever normal means.

She eyes David suspiciously, but shit. It’s not like he _hit_ her or anything.

“Okay,” says Chloe. 

It almost doesn’t feel like she’s entirely bullshitting herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, that was a roller coaster. Here starts the doom spiral. Hope you guys are ready for it.
> 
> As always, you can catch me at highandholy.tumblr.com.


	4. Suck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Turn and face the strain.
> 
> WARNING: This chapter contains homophobia, references to sex, drug and alcohol use, etc. Also the introduction of an OC for narrative purposes.

Chloe goes back to school the following Monday. Sleeps through or skips every class but art. She just draws circles, spirals, eyes, and it’s weirdly calming. 

She hangs around at the smoke pit by herself as the end of day bell rings, chains another cigarette. It’s raining a little, and she hasn’t talked to Rachel all day, save for a fairly pathetic text she sent ten minutes ago on her shiny, new phone. 

Rachel walks towards her out of the crowd of kids. Chloe forces herself to remain neutral, even though all she wants to do is shake Rachel, ask her _why_. 

“Hey,” says Rachel. 

Reaches her peace fingers out. 

Chloe pauses, looks down. Passes her the cig. Rachel’s sticky lip gloss on the filter.

Rachel hugs herself. “I was really worried about you, Chloe. You just... bailed.”

“You say that like I don’t fucking know.” 

She can’t help but sound angry. She feels like human garbage. Unwanted.

“Chloe, I--” She makes a frustrated noise. “I can’t be everything you want me to be. You can’t just run away every time something doesn’t go your way!”

Chloe stares at her shoes. Blinks hard.

“Chloe. _Please_. This isn’t fucking fair. You’re my best friend and I lo--”

“You don’t get to say that. Fuck off, Rachel.” 

She runs. She ignores Rachel calling her name, calling her a bitch, hears her best friend start crying behind her. She’s such a piece of shit. 

But it hurts and Rachel doesn’t want her the same way. She doesn’t deserve Rachel, anyway, even as a friend.

Chloe doesn’t go home. Heads to a mostly empty, dingy hipster coffee shop and sits by herself in a corner, staring aimlessly out the window. Watches the rain. Max would probably like this place.

Shit. She hasn’t thought of Max in forever.

She doodles on a napkin and drinks her shitty expensive coffee (nothing is as good as the Two Whales, but she can’t face Joyce), and notices some dude standing at the edge of the table, watching her draw.

“Take a picture, asshole. It’ll last longer.”

“Well, excuse me.” His voice is deep and friendly. “I just wanted to see what you were drawing. Thought you were gonna stab that pen right through the table.”

“Well, I was trying to,” She sets the pen down, glares up at him. He’s kinda cute. For a guy. “Before you interrupted my epic furniture assassination plot. Douche.”

“There’s still time. Table’ll never see it coming. I won’t say a word, I promise.” 

“How can I trust you not to narc me out?” 

“I guess you just need to go with your gut.”

Chloe scowls. What if her guts are busy being ripped out?

He slides into the booth opposite without her consent, plucks the pen from her fingers and squiggles something onto the edge of the napkin. His long hair hangs over his face, and when he looks back up at her, he’s smiling, lines in the corner of his eyes.

“I’m Tyler.”

“I don’t care.”

“Feisty.” 

Chloe looks at the napkin. He drew a giant dick. She snorts despite herself.

“Tell me your name?”

“Brittany.”

“You don’t look like a Brittany.”

“...Chloe.” 

“So, Chloe, why are you sitting pissed off and alone in this hipster shitville? You’re way too cool to be here.” 

“Too cool to talk to you.”

Chloe spins the napkin back to face her, adds on to his dick drawing. Sketches thighs, hips, a lean stomach. He takes the pen, draws a stick-figure smiley face on top of a mostly anatomically correct neck. “A masterpiece,” declares Tyler, adding some swirls of chest hair.

She stares at the drawing for a moment. Picks up her coffee and dumps it all over the table. It seeps through the napkin immediately, blue ink bleeding, trickling down off the countertop, droplets landing on her pant legs. 

“Y’know, someone’s gonna have to clean that up.”

“I missed the part where that was my fucking problem.” 

She bolts out of her seat, out the front door, and he tails her out into the parking lot. Chloe whirls on him as he corners her against the side of her truck, and he’s tall and lanky, bright eyed, amused. He doesn’t seem to be sick of her shit, even though she was deliberately acting like a fucking brat.

“Look, I get it. You’re having a shit day. But I saw you there all alone, and I just had to talk to you.”

“You don’t know shit about me.” She stares up at him, defiantly, even if his attention is making her stomach flutter.

“Yeah, well, I’d like to.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, kicks his feet. “Follow me to my place?”

“No.”

“I just picked up some sour diesel.” He smiles. His teeth are crooked. “Big, fresh nugs. Unless you’re not the blazing type.”

“No, dude. I don’t even know you.”

“Guess I thought wrong about you, then. Kinda disappointing.” He shrugs, starts to turn, watching her.

Chloe considers. Looks away.

“Okay, you know what, fuck it. Lead the way.”

“Awesome.” He tags her shoulder, walks off to his car. 

She gets into her truck, takes a deep breath through her nose. Starts the engine.

His place, it turns out, is a bit of a shit hole, a rented basement suite on the bad part of town. Still better than home with step-douche, better than being alone.

Chloe can’t complain when the bong is passed to her, loaded with ice and clean water. She coughs, eyes watering, and sinks into the thrifted couch. She’s already two bowls in, the gaping, aching hole Rachel punched through her numbed to a permanent sting.

Tyler gets closer to her, his thigh warm against hers, and puts a shitty horror movie on his flatscreen, the only expensive thing in the entire place. 

“So, where do you work?” he asks, after they’ve trod through all the smalltalk, him singing praises about her favorite bands, movies she likes. He’s in a band (drummer), which is pretty cool, bonus points in her book. 

Chloe’s tongue feels thick in her mouth, and she reaches for the neck of the bong for another hit. Cradling it her thighs she pushes the charred bud around with the end of a lighter. “Uh, I don’t work, dude.” She hits it, and it’s ashy, but she just wants to be higher. “I’m in high school.”

“No shit?” He sips his beer. “Wow, I thought you were way older.”

“Yeah?” she laughs nervously, and shit, nobody’s ever said that to her before. 

“So… how old are you?” he asks, and his face is so close now, the smell of alcohol on his breath.

“Sixteen.”

He pushes a strand of blue out of her face, cups her cheek in his palm. “Chloe, shit, you don’t act like any sixteen year old I’ve ever met.”

She recoils ever so slightly, self-conscious. “Fuck off.”

“No, I’m serious. I’m the luckiest fucking guy to have you here tonight. I can’t believe you agreed to come.”

“Yeah, well, you offered me free weed. Hard to resist.”

“You sure it’s not ‘cause you like me?” He smiles, and he has a nice enough mouth.

“Well, I guess you don’t entirely suck.”

“Is that the ‘Chloequivalent’ of telling me you think I’m sexy?” 

Her face feels hot. This feels kind of weird, but it’s probably just the booze, his cheesy jokes. “Dude, you’re like thirty.”

He pushes her teasingly, his hands coming to rest on her shoulder and thigh. “Hey, no making fun of me! I’m only 21.” He moves the bong off her lap onto the floor, pulls her legs over his. “Besides, I bet you only like older guys.”

Chloe chokes on her words. _I don’t like guys._

He’s kissing her before she can get a sentence out, and Chloe thinks about pulling away. He lets her down onto the couch, crawls on top of her. She closes her eyes, and honestly, it’s not _bad_ but it doesn’t feel right.

She has sex for the first time that night. It doesn’t hurt as much as she thought it would. Physically, anyway.

* * *

Chloe wakes up before he does. Sneaks out of his bed to covertly puke in the sink. His toilet is disgusting. She sucks toothpaste out of the tube to help her terrible breath.

Head pounding, she creeps back into his bedroom, gathering her clothing off the floor. As she’s zipping up her pants, she realizes he’s watching her, propped up on his elbows. “Uh… hey.”

“Hi,” Tyler says, smiling. “You running away so early? I was gonna offer you brunch.”

“Yeah… I have class. Gotta go.”

“Can I text you sometime?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” 

Face heating, she shoves her feet into her boots, laces them up, on the edge of the bed. He scoots closer to her, drapes his arms over her shoulders. Kisses her neck. Chloe focuses on her shoes, but doesn’t push him away.

“I had a lot of fun last night. You really are fucking awesome, Chlo.” 

She smirks. “I know, dude. Too cool for you, remember?” She stands to her full height, tugs her beanie over her head. “Uh… text me, okay?” 

“Definitely. I’ll hit you up soon.” 

By the time Chloe’s halfway down the street in her truck, the gears in her head start grinding. Okay, so, maybe sleeping with some dude she just met wasn’t the greatest idea, but smart was always Rachel’s thing. 

She does feel a little better, though… in some ways. And also kind of nauseous. She pulls over to the side of the road to puke one more time.

Chloe heads to school, on time for lunch at least, feeling a little nasty in her second day clothes. Dirty underwear. Gross. As she steps out onto the campus, she flips out her phone, finds Rachel’s number. Calls her.

“Hi.”

“Rachel. Hey. Uh.” Chloe takes a deep breath. “Come to the parking lot? I wanna talk.”

“Okay, sure.”

Hangs up the phone. Waits, smoking a cigarette, back against the truck. 

Rachel walks down over the pavement, mouth set, hand tight around the strap of her bag. Chloe flicks the smoke to the ground, grinds it out with her toe.

“Rachel,” says Chloe, and she’s so relieved to see her. She wants to run up and hug her. “Dude. I… fuck. I was a total dickhead yesterday.”

“Yeah. Giant massive _fucking_ dickhead.”

Chloe cringes. Puts her palms up in surrender. “Okay. Totally deserved that.”

“Yes, you did.” 

It’s hardly ever that Rachel gets mad at her, and Chloe flounders for a moment, wondering if she’s totally, irreparably ruined everything. Rachel does not look happy.

She sighs, head hanging. “I’m sorry Rach. I fucked up. I don’t know how to make this up to you.”

“You need to stop being so fucking selfish, Chloe. I’m your friend, not your dancing monkey.” 

Chloe laughs, sadly. “Ouch.” She pulls another cigarette out of the carton, offers it to Rachel first. She smiles a little, accepts it. Their fingers touch for a moment. “I wish I had a better peace offering, but I left all my bananas at home.”

“Bitch! You are so cheesy. At least I’m not in yesterday’s clothes.” Rachel lights her smoke, her blonde hair hanging over her eyes as she leans forward. 

“Hey, excuse you. I’m trying out the grunge thing.”

“But seriously, did you not go home last night?” There’s some worry in her voice as she passes the cig, and Chloe puffs on it and pretends not to hear her. “Chloe?”

“I met a guy.”

Rachel’s eyebrows shoot into her hairline. “A guy.”

“Don’t look so shocked, dude. Not like I’m a dyke or anything.”

“Yeah, but--” Rachel’s eyes pan away, and she turns back on Chloe with a perturbed expression. “So did you…”

“We got kinda blazed and did it. Yeah.”

Rachel stares like Chloe’s announced a religious conversion, doesn’t stop even as she returns the cigarette. “Chloe… this wasn’t…”

It hangs there, unspoken. _Because of me_. 

“Relax, sista. He was cute and in a band, I like him, we boned. Don’t worry too much.” Chloe shrugs, smiles, it’s non-committal and Rachel doesn’t look like she wholly believes her bullshit. Still, Chloe wants to move far, far away from that moment of Rachel telling her that she didn’t want her. She never wants to feel like that again. “He said he’d text me - we’re gonna hang out again.”

Rachel looks so, so sad. 

Chloe treats it like a victory.

* * *

Things go back to normal quickly. Whatever normal is. 

Rachel forgives her easily enough, forgets, washing the blue dye out for Chloe in the bathroom. Her mouth kissing the sink basin, Rachel’s hands in her hair, an unanswered text waiting in her pocket and Chloe feels like things are more or less under her control again. 

She hears her mom laugh downstairs, David’s voice soon after.

More or less.

Rachel turns off the taps, presses a towel over Chloe’s wet, scraggly hair. She flips her head back up, looking at herself in the mirror. “Whoa.”

Her hair, a bloom of cerulean. This stranger, staring back.

“Good look for you, Ms. Beauregarde.”

“Why thank you, Mr. Wonka.” Chloe does a short, clumsy curtsey, bows her head, towel slipping down onto the counter. “Holy shit is that blue though, for reals.”

“It suits you.” Rachel’s smiling in the mirror, goldenrod eyes twinkling, but doesn’t try to touch Chloe like she would’ve before, midnight stained fingers at her sides, taut. 

They discuss and draw tattoo plans until Rachel’s nodding off on her bed, then head down to the truck, for Chloe to drive her home. She can hear Joyce and David laughing at something on TV as she leaves, oblivious to the world outside themselves. 

She doesn’t head back, immediately, checks Tyler’s message.

_hey hot lady :) wanna hang? i have horror and green stuff._

She goes to his place.

They get high while she half-listens to his band stories, and Chloe blows him when he asks for it. It’s uncomfortable, but worth it, for the noises he makes, telling her she's _good_. 

She doesn’t let him return the favor, holds him too long when they say goodbye. She drives home slowly, breathing hard. 

Joyce is up waiting in a housecoat for her when she gets there, a cup of tea at the table, pieces of toast. “Took you longer than usual to take Rachel home, don’t you think?” Chloe rounds the corner, comes into the light. “Jesus! Look at your hair!”

“Chill, Mom, it’s just hair.”

Joyce looks pissed, but the expression melts away quickly. “You’re right. It is just hair.” She takes a sip from her cup. “Suppose you could do worse. At least you’re not off having sex.” 

Chloe avoids her eyes. “Gross.” 

Joyce props her chin on her palm and positively beams. “Oh, Chloe, when I was your age--”

“Agh, bring the brain bleach. I’m gonna puke.”

“Hey, just because I’m your mother doesn’t mean I wasn’t cool! Most kids go through an experimental phase, I’m not any different.” She raises her eyebrows suggestively.

Chloe’s face betrays her, a crooked, toothy grin pulling at her lips. “And you totally dropped so much acid in high school that now you’re living in a permanently distorted reality where you think David isn’t a total cave troll?”

“Well, apparently, I’m not the only one there, considering you live in a ‘distorted reality’ where you think I won’t kick your scrawny butt for that smart mouth of yours.” Joyce smiles back. “Gimme a hug, kid.”

Chloe has to bend down to loop her arms around Joyce’s neck, and it’s good to hug her mom, the smell of her lotion, the tickle of her hair against Chloe’s cheek. Joyce tries to let her go, but Chloe hangs on.

“Now, get to bed.” Joyce pats her shoulder, Chloe lets go, heads upstairs. “Love you, Chloe.”

“Night.”

She lays in bed in the darkness, the whirr of her fan, back and forth, back and forth. Chloe slides her hand down the front of her sleep shorts, thinks about Rachel.

Experimental phase.

Whatever that means. 

She closes her eyes and breathes and knows that the way she feels isn’t an experiment. 

It is nothing less than absolute.

* * *

Fall rolls through like leaves in the wind, winter roaring up on its heels, cold and casual. Not much happens. 

David and Joyce are mostly steady, strict, a single driving unit. Chloe hangs around like a ghost. 

She still meets up with Tyler, watches his band practice. Has one-sided sex. Sometimes, they sit together on the couch and he puts his arm around her. She doesn’t know what to do with that. Sometimes he calls her, just to talk. She doesn’t know what to do with that, either.

Rachel doesn’t like him much, passive-aggressive remarks abound, but will smoke his hastily-rolled joints when he offers. An uneasy truce.

The holidays arrive with little preamble.

She makes Rachel a blue feathered earring before Christmas, gives it to her hesitantly, unwrapped in her palm. She’d spent months banging it out in art class to her professor’s chagrin, but it’s so worth it, when Rachel smiles, slides it in. Chloe tickles the feather with the tip of her finger, and she’ll remember that ecstatic face forever.

Christmas comes and goes. More money for Chloe’s tattoo. Appointments booked for January. David and Joyce making kissy faces. Disgusting. Her delight, his strained smiles when she’s not looking. 

Chloe, a forgotten phantom perching on the stairs.

“Hey, so,” starts Rachel, clearly chewing something in the speaker, “The Vortex Club is having a New Years bash. I’m on the guest list with a plus one. I know it’s not your scene, but I really want to go.”

“Yeah?” Chloe hadn’t a clue Rachel would be into that type of party - the Vortex Club was full of rich pricks who usually looked down on them. How did she even get invited? Still, they did talk to Rachel at school, when Chloe wasn’t hanging around like a pissed off shadow. 

“Yeah! Should be a rager. They have a DJ, and those rich kids always have the good shit.”

“Ohoh, colour me interested.” Chloe shifts the phone to her other ear. “Fuck, what do I wear to a WASP party. They’re gonna judge the hell out of me.”

“Chloe, money can’t buy fashion sense. Just dress like you usually do, you already look better than most of them.”

“Yeah, sure, Rach. I’m pretty sure those Vortex shits all hate me, regardless of my shitty clothes.” She absently pokes a finger through a hole in her shirt.

“Come on, Chlo. Not everyone has to like you. Not everyone has taste!”

She snorts in response. “True dat, bitch. Okay, I’ll just do my usual badass and unapproachable thing, then.” 

“Typical Chloe. What do I wear? Ah, I’m so excited.”

“Yeah, whatever, you just want to suck a pair of Louboutins through some rich dude’s dick.” 

Rachel cackles loudly. “Chloe, you’re such an asshole. Can I come to your place to get ready?” 

“Yeah, dude. Just don’t tell step-dick we’re going to a Vortex party. He’ll freak.”

“Oh, seriously? Think he wants to come?”

“Bitch.”

“Talk soon, Chlo.”

She heads downstairs, and it’s late, the living room awash with darkness save for the muted light of the TV. David’s sitting reclined on the sofa, his feet up on the table, nursing a glass of whiskey. Reruns of Christmas specials, eerie and cheery.

Chloe opens the fridge, searches for leftovers, David stumbling into the kitchen. It’s not often she sees him drinking excessively, the first time she’s seen him drunk. She watches him carefully, clutching a container of cranberry sauce against her chest.

“Uh… hey.”

He shuffles past her, pats her awkwardly on the head. She doesn’t know how to take that, standing there eyeing him, as he pours himself another round. 

It’s weird to see him loosen up. Since the ‘phone incident’, the counseling, it’s a cold war, mostly just avoiding one another in the house, Joyce oblivious to the tension. It’s not like they ever do anything as a ‘family’ - this whole week’s been a weird anomaly, togetherness, only sniping with no outright fights. Close.

“You getting loaded?” She eyes the two fingers of whiskey. She wonders if she could talk him into giving her some.

He shrugs. “Maybe.”

“Did Mom go to bed?”

“Few hours ago.”

Chloe pops open the tupperware, sets it on the counter, the bottle close by. “Kinda surprised you’re still up. And drunk. Late for you, Captain America.” He’s always been an in bed by nine, up at the crack of dawn-type.

“Holidays tend to set me out of sorts.” He props himself on the bar stool. “Not a really big fan.”

“I get it.”

Chloe finds a clean fork, shoves cranberry sauce in her mouth, crimson in the corners of her lips. David makes a face, and she procures a bowl with a pronounced sigh. She sets her hip against the counter. 

He stares straight ahead, immobile. 

“It’s like… everyone, everywhere, wants you to be happy. Just put on a shit-eating grin and act like everything’s fine, like our country isn’t caving in on its morals, for all that ‘Goodwill to men, peace on earth’ bullshit.” David shakes his head, takes another swig. “It fucks me up.”

She’s not sure what to say to him, aside from, “Yeah.” 

He offers his glass, she awkwardly clinks it with the edge of her bowl. Cheers.

“For what it’s worth,” he pauses, drinks, “I’m sorry your dad couldn’t be here.” 

“...Thanks.”

This is weird.

She puts the container away, kicks the fridge shut with her heel. Her heart is hammering her throat for some reason. David stands up, plants his big hand on the counter. His arm is around her before she knows what’s happening, and she rocks back against his side, fingers clinging like a lifeline to the bowl. Sweet, merciful cranberry sauce. Blood red and sour.

“I know I give you hell, and that you probably hate me. But I’m glad we’re a family.”

“God, David, you’re so fucking psycho.” She awkwardly pats his shoulder, wiggling out of his hold, liquor on his breath.

“Night, Chloe.” He claps her hard on the bicep, firm, dismissal, and he’s back to the couch, Chloe practically leaping up the stairs.

She’s breathing hard, sitting on her bed. She can feel his touch, hot, like a brand.

Family.

She doesn't know what to do with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the heterosexuality. It's important to the plot, I promise. 'Boy toy phase' and all.
> 
> You can find me at highandholy.tumblr.com if you'd like to chat. Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Next up, Vortex Club party time! And some familiar characters.


	5. Cool

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thread starts to unravel. Rachel and Chloe go to a party. A few familiar faces from Arcadia make appearances.
> 
> WARNING: Drug use in this chapter, homophobia, the usual.

Rich kids have cool houses.

Chloe parks her truck far enough away that a quick escape is possible, Rachel singing nasally, off-key, a little tipsy already. She’s out the door fast, Chloe locking it behind her, Rachel hugging herself against the cold. 

“You fucking idiot. It’s the middle of winter, and you’re in a mini-dress.” She tugs her close. holding her around the shoulders, silky blond hair pinned under her arm. The feather earring bobs against her elbow.

“Beauty is pain, Chloe.”

“Well, you do look hella beautiful.” She watches her boots leave hollows in the frost.

Rachel pauses. Passes her the water bottle they’ve half-filled with vodka. “Thanks.”

Chloe swallows back a huge mouthful, her feelings with it, and mentally prepares herself.

It’s some jock asshole’s party, hosted at his parent’s house. They’d obviously gone on vacation for the holidays, no supervision, and he’s a little wasted already when he greets them at the door. He looks a little taken aback as Chloe mean mugs him, standing behind Rachel like her own personal bodyguard. Jackets are quickly discarded, and the house is packed with teenagers, young adults, probably everyone in Arcadia Bay worth knowing came to this party.

“Rachel!” 

There’s a chorus of squealing as some cheerleader types surround them. Chloe steps back, chugs the water bottle, finishes it. Obviously Rachel’s made some shiny new friends in classes Chloe’s chosen to mostly ignore for the past few months. 

Rachel tugs her forward by the elbow, and she forces a smile. “Hey.”

“Chloe, right? Don’t look so surprised, I know everyone who’s anyone at Blackwell. Besides, I helped with the guest list. I’m Juliet.”

“Cool.” Chloe shoves her hands in her pockets, looks at Rachel helplessly. 

“Can we get this girl to a bong?” Rachel asks, supermodel smile on full display. “We need to loosen you up, Chlo.”

They card through the growing crowd, the dining room hazy, weed spilled over the table, bong stems like bedposts in the four corners. Rachel leaves for a moment to get them drinks, and Chloe loses her confidence a little, set out to sea. 

Juliet presents her with a blunt, and she pinches it and takes a hit, nods in gratitude. “So tell me,” starts Juliet, pausing to cough over her shoulder, “How did you get in with a girl like Rachel?”

“Dunno. Fate, I guess. She found me when I needed her.”

“Oh yeah. When your dad died?”

It’s like being stabbed in the gut, and Chloe closes her eyes.

Juliet flinches. “Fuck. I’m sorry. Dana tells me that’s my superpower -- making everything really fucking awkward with my word-vomit. I should probably stop smoking.”

Chloe passes it back without looking at her. “Or smoke so much you can never fucking speak again.”

“That I can do.” 

Rachel returns, balancing red Solo cups, alcohol spilling over the rim as she drops them on the table. Chloe drinks, and the weed is kicking in, her mouth numb to the sugary flavor, Juliet’s eyes red and viscous like blood oranges.

A few guys arrive at the table with a deck of cards, one guy Chloe recognizes from school, Hayden, asking, “Up for some King’s Cup?” 

“I’m down,” says Chloe, Rachel nodding in agreement, and they quickly amorph into a larger group, footballers, a pouty blond girl with short hair, Vortex stragglers, all different levels of intoxicated. Chloe feels like a part of them, a part of something, as they go around the table, getting a little louder, music is shaking the walls, and at some point Rachel leaves her side. Her lifeline, stretched.

More people head to the makeshift dance floor Rachel’s created, couches shoved to the walls, and Chloe stays at the table, rolls another joint. Hayden’s there, the blond girl, and she sparks it, passing left. Hayden takes a huge rip, hands it off, “I’m good, I’m good.” He stumbles away from the table fist-pumping to the shitty top-40 hit shivering the chandelier.

It’s just the two of them, tacky fingerprints on the tabletop.

“So you’re seriously going to just sit here? Shouldn’t you be like, hella dancing?”

The blond girl scowls. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Touchy.” Chloe kicks her chair back, tips it on two legs. “Not in the party mood?”

“I’m pretty sure my boyfriend’s busy putting his dick into some junior high slut so, no, you could say I’m not in the ‘party mood’.”

“That sucks.”

Chloe doesn’t know what to say. It’s sort of like meeting her miserable doppelganger, dripped in Dior, glaring at the burned down stub of the joint. Chloe looks off to the side, the balcony doors, and jerks her head. “Wanna get some air?”

“Do I ever.”

It’s freezing cold outside, and the girl sidles up to her, clutching her arms. Chloe lights a cigarette. Her nose is cold.

“This party sucks,” says the girl, leaning forward over the railing. “This whole fucking holiday sucks. My parents totally ditched me to go to Costa Rica, all my friends bailed to do coke upstairs, and my boyfriend is a cheating piece of literal _human garbage_.”

“Your friends have coke?” 

The girl wrinkles her nose. 

“I’m fucking with you.”

“I was just supposed to go party and have fun! And forget. Instead I’m standing on a shitty porch in the cold, with a dirty lesbian, hating my life.” 

“Not a lesbian.” 

“You’re still dirty.”

“Fuck off.” Chloe laughs, kicks her heel up onto the foot of the railing. She is dirty. Her boot has a hole in the toe. 

She plants her chin in her hands, teeth chattering from the chill. “I’m too pretty to be spending New Year’s Eve alone!”

“You’re not _that_ pretty.” That’s a flat out lie. She feels a buzz in her pocket, and Chloe checks her phone. “Oh shit, yeah. It’s almost midnight.” There’s a text from Tyler ( _happy new years!!_ ), a few from Rachel.

_where are yooou_

_omg chloe i am SO HIGH YAY_

_chlooeeee we have to do the countodwn_

Her fingers are freezing. She stares at the phone for awhile, trying to figure out how to respond.

_balcony_

Real fuckin’ astute.

Blond girl is reading over her shoulder, reaches to twist her phone to see the screen better. “Oh yeah. You’re real tight with Rachel Amber.” 

“Dude, don’t read my texts!” Chloe childishly tugs her phone away, the other girl leaning into her, off-balance. “Or were you just looking for an excuse to cozy up to me? And you call _me_ a les.”

“I’m cold, okay? Jesus.” 

Chloe snorts, throws an arm around her, and it’s kind of weird, _comfortable_ , even. She smells good, leans into her touch.

Chloe flicks her cigarette over the edge, watches the pure red light fade into the night below. Bottomless, an abyss.

She hears the balcony door slide open behind them, the party noise leaking through the entryway. “Chloe?” 

Turning, she drops her arm from the other girl’s back. “Rach, hey.”

Rachel’s a mess, to say the least, dress spotted with beer. Her earring catches the light, a knowing twinkle in the mess of her long, blond hair. The light spills through behind her.

She tiptoes, barefoot, out onto the balcony, hands reaching for Chloe, who catches her as she stumbles. 

Rachel’s nose is a little bloody, snow white. Chloe brushes it away with a knuckle, then looks over her shoulder at the shaking blond, distant at the guardrail. “I think she found your friends.”

The other girl bears a wounded expression at that.

Rachel winds her arms around Chloe’s neck, fingers tangling in the straps of her shirt. 

“Victoria.” Rachel smiles into the curve of Chloe’s collarbone. 

“Rachel.” She hangs around for a moment longer, looks down, sharply inhales. “Yeah… I’m going inside now. Leave you bitches to scissor each other or whatever.” 

She charges past them, doesn’t look back. Chloe feels like kind of a dick watching her leave, alone.

Rachel’s hand is on her cheek, and Chloe turns to her. “Looks like you got into the blow.”

“Chloe, we can take over the world right now.” 

Rachel’s pupils are wide, black, sucking.

“I’m pretty sure you’re just coked out.”

“ _Whatever_! In minutes, Chloe, in _minutes_ , it’s a new year, a new start, and I want something more than this. Something bigger than this. We weren’t born to be dragged down, to drown here, and I _refuse_ to die without anyone knowing my name.”

“You idiot. I know your name.” 

Rachel presses up against her, foreheads knocking, so close they’re osmosing into each other.

“Say it.”

“Rachel,” she answers, breathlessly.

Her hand is coke-strong on the back of Chloe’s neck, tugging at the baby hairs there, sensitive, her neck arching into the touch. Lashes low, smoky, Rachel murmurs, “Don’t talk to Victoria again. She’s a bitch.”

The center of her, smouldering, burned through by Rachel’s gaze. 

“I won’t.” 

Chloe focuses on the press of Rachel’s breasts against her own, her thighs. 

Counting down behind them. Three, two, one.

“Happy New Year, Chloe.”

The noise from the party bleeds through the windows, cheering, yelling, but for Chloe, it doesn’t exist. Everything worth anything burns in Rachel’s eyes. 

Everything.

* * *

Jet black fluid. Disinfectant.

Chloe watches him select the tools, set them in a neat row on the tray. He’s prepping the tattoo machine with plastic and elastic, and Chloe’s only, just now, starting to feel her chest constrict in anticipation.

Tyler’d recommended him, a friend of a friend, a good artist, clean and professional, unwilling to ask questions about their obviously forged parental signatures. Rachel’s already done, a star on the wrist, bandaged and stiff as she texts.

“So I figure we’ll get the linework done this session, do the first colour session in about two months, another in another two months, any shading after the fact, etcetera.” He swivels his chair to face her, grinning, lip piercings gleaming in the harsh studio lighting. “Hope you’re comfortable and don’t have to piss. You’ll be here for a few hours.”

“How long?” asks Rachel, poking her nose up out of her phone.

“Six, maybe seven hours? A full sleeve at my level of artistry is not a little banger like that typical white girl star.”

Chloe snorts, and Rachel looks a little offended, but just rolls her eyes. “Okay, whatever. I have a photoshoot soon, so I’ll have to bail.”

“I thought we were spending all day together?” She inwardly cringes. That was a little desperate, even for her.

“I thought I told you? I’m doing some work on my portfolio. Sorry, Chlo, I didn’t realize how long yours was gonna take.” She’s still typing on her phone. 

“Okay.” She stares hard at her hand in front of her, her vision going blurry.

The artist takes her wrist on the table, cheap disposable razor at the ready, starts shaving her arm. Chloe feels pinned in place, as Rachel doesn’t look at her, focusing on her phone, smiling from time to time.

There’s an uncomfortable silence, and although tattoo guy is clearly aware of it, he keeps it professional for Chloe’s sake. Nitrate gloves, a sanitized station, he cracks open a fresh needle and plugs it into the tattoo machine with some finicking. 

The hand-drawn stencil is already set on Chloe, blue where black will be, and he positions her arm where he wants it. “We’ll start from the wrist and work our way up. More tender down here.” He grins. “You ready? No reservations? Position’s good?”

“Hella good. Fire at ‘er.” Chloe’s voice cracks, but he grins, pushes hard on her arm, stretching the skin. 

It’s like a hot knife as he begins the first line, like her bones are vibrating, the whirr of the needle a counterpoint to the metal blaring over the speakers. Chloe doesn’t wince, it honestly isn’t as painful as much as Rachel made it seem with her squirming and whining. It feels good, a productive pain, worth every needle spiking through her flesh.

Rachel stands, looking down as the black sinks into her skin, her blond hair hanging like a shadow over Chloe’s shoulder. “You are way more hardcore than I am. It’s gonna look so cool.”

“It totally doesn’t hurt at all, Rach. You big pussy.”

“Oh shut up.” Rachel smiles. 

The first scrape of paper towel burns more than the needle. There’s blood and black ink, and he’s already done the first bit of outline, slowly turning her wrist to move to the next section.

Chloe takes strained breaths, tries to relax. Soon, the pain is a part of her, ringing through her body. She doesn’t notice it anymore. 

The months they’d spent drawing up this sleeve, Rachel adding colours, studying flowers, hibiscus, crimson, Chloe tracing out skulls over all of her binders and notebooks at school. Their shared time, in Chloe’s skin, butterflies up her shoulder, whispering in her ear.

Rachel sets a firm palm on her back, bends low. “I have to go.”

“Yeah, uh, sure.” She looks up as Rachel gets her bag, her sweater. “Text me later?”

“Duh.” She swings her wave of hair off her shoulder, cocks her hip. “I wanna hear _all_ about Full Metal Jack-off’s reaction.”

“I’m sure it’ll be positive as fuck. Just another great life decision from perfect step-kid Chloe Price.” She cringes as the needle dips into the crease of her elbow. Okay, that kind of sucks.

“I’ll see you later, girl. Kiss kiss.” 

Rachel’s out the door. The studio feels dark, quiet without her. The artist works in silence, and Chloe tries not to let her hurt show. She funnels her feelings into the pain.

She almost falls asleep until he wiggles his ink stained glove in her face. “Hey, dude. Hand’s cramping up, gotta take a break. But we’re done the first pass at least.” He stands, rolling his shoulder. “Want a coffee or something?”

“Yeah, sure. Coffee is life.” 

She looks in the mirror at her bloodied, swollen arm. The black ink is all the way up her shoulder, now, thin and angry, and she sort of feels like her skin is on fire. Like its tight, encased in plastic. Suffocating.

He flips the switch on the drip machine, brewing a fresh pot. Disappears into the bathroom, closing the door behind him.

Chloe checks her phone. Nothing from Rachel, a message from Tyler. 

_how goes the inking. takin it like a champ?_

_you betcha. halfway done_

_come over after?_

She considers.

_ya sure._

_kewl :)_

_NO EMOJI_

_k_

He comes out drying his hands, checking the coffee maker. Chloe feels a little uncomfortable, wishes Rachel was here to provide commentary, to smile at her, to--

“How ya doin?” says the artist, rolling his chair over to her. He gingerly picks up her hand, turns her arm to look at his work. Chloe watches, detached, like she’s floating up on the ceiling looking down on herself. “You’re a bit of a bleeder, but looks like the ink’s taking well. Figure we’ll do a second pass, and that’ll finish us off for the day.”

“So we have to go over it again?” She inwardly flinches at the waver in her voice.

“Yep. That’s the sucky part.” He wheels back to the coffee maker, pours her a cup. “Sorry I don’t have cream, dude. Black’s okay?”

“Only pussies put cream and sugar in their coffee, dude. I drink it black.”

“Like your heart, I bet.” He snorts, passes her the disposable cup. She takes it with her good arm, sips it. It tastes like shit. “I like cream and sugar. That make me a bitch?”

“You have a shark eating a heart tatted on your throat. Pretty sure you’re not a bitch.”

He sips his own, looks at her tellingly over the ring of styrofoam. “I don’t think admitting a preference makes you a pussy.”

Chloe eyes him through her bangs. 

“I’m just saying. It’s okay to like your coffee black. It’s okay to like cream and sugar. It’s okay to like both.” He tips his chin down. “If you’re picking up what I’m putting down.”

They look at each other for a moment. Knowing. 

Chloe clears her throat. “Uh, I’m good to get started if you are.”

The next few hours are brutal, every swipe of the paper towel like razors over her sensitive flesh. Her forearm is swollen almost double, hot to the touch, and by the time he’s almost finished, Chloe’s literally shaking with the need to get out of the chair, recoiling from every touch of the needle.

He covers her with tape and plastic, gives her aftercare instructions. She pays, books the next appointment close to her birthday.

“Even though that piece isn’t my creation, I’m pretty stoked. Can’t wait to hit it with some colour.” He hands her a receipt she immediately crumples and shoves in her pocket. “You should be proud, too.”

“Why?”

“That’s a lot of pain to sit through.”

Chloe looks down.

“So, uh, I’ll see you next time.”

“You know where I am.”

She heads to Tyler’s place, the whole side of her body, her arm, feeling like massive bruise. She can barely drive, her shoulder stiff, but she makes it there without preamble. 

He ambushes her as soon as she knocks on the door and Chloe yelps, shoves him back. “Dude, watch it! I just had needles in every inch of that arm for like literally eight hours.”

“Jesus. I was just excited to see you.”

He lets her in, smiling at first, but it quickly fades as he takes in her dour mood, soaking it up like a sponge. “Why the bitch face? You just got inked, this is fucking exciting. We’re celebrating!”

“I don’t want to talk about it. I just wanna blaze right now.”

She crashes on his couch, picks up his grinder, starts prepping some bud. He sets himself down next to her, watching. 

“So you’re just gonna smoke my ganj and ignore me?” 

“Dude, chill out. Just let me get my weed on.”

“You mean _my_ weed.”

Chloe closes the grinder, but her arm is too sore to properly push it. She hands it off to him at the expectant look on his face. Despite his bitching, he rolls her a joint without complaint. She takes it from his hands as soon as the tip is pinched, slots it into her mouth, lights it. 

“Chloe, you’re so sexy like this. All punk rock with your new sleeve, giving me hell, smoking my shit.”

“Is that sarcasm?” she asks, out of the side of her mouth. She takes a lungful, exhales right into his face.

“Wanna do it?” He spreads his thighs, knocks her knee with his own, pushes his hips up.

“I actually don’t.”

“Seriously? I kinda thought that’s why you’re here. I mean, usually we just smoke, bone, and you bail.”

Chloe’s hands are shaking. Ash drops onto her jeans.

“It’s not like we’re anything other than fuck buddies.” He plucks the joint from her fingers, puts it between his teeth. “You’ve pretty much made that clear from day one.”

“So since I’m not putting out, you want me to fuck off?”

“That’s not what I want.” He kicks his feet up, blows a smoke ring. “But sure. Whatever.”

Chloe starts to go fuzzy around the edges, stares straight ahead, not moving. He passes her the joint and sighs, crosses his arms over his chest.

“I don’t get you, Chloe.” 

“Good.” It’s petulant and childish, but Chloe never claimed to be mature.

“Goddamn it.”

He slips off the couch, walks away to the next room, leaving Chloe by herself. She stares ahead for a moment, high, her brain spiraling into what-ifs, suffocating her. Her breaths become shaky, and she stubs out the joint into a full ashtray, suddenly not sure what to do with her hands. 

She starts going places she’d rather not. She thinks about her dad for the first time in awhile, how pissed off he’d be at her for being at some fuckboy’s house, getting stoned. How he isn't even there to hold her when she's sad, how he's not going to be there to cheer her up. She thinks about David, how he’d probably kick her out if he knew, yell at her, Joyce looking on in disapproval.

She thinks about Rachel ditching her, just _leaving her_ there, after promising her the day together, and her breath catches and her eyes sting before she can help it. 

She pulls her knees up to her chest, rests her forehead, holding herself, right arm weak. Everything hurts. 

Chloe hears footsteps she pretends to ignore, and Tyler sets a few glasses on the table, sits down gingerly beside her. “So… wanna talk about it?”

“Fuck you,” she mumbles, and her words are wet and sour, bitter.

He sighs, heavily. “I swear to fuck, it’s like talking to a little kid sometimes. I get it - you just come here when you’re sad, fuck me to make it feel better for a little while, get all bent out of shape again, wash, rinse, repeat. I’m tired of being your dildo.”

It’s not untrue, but it hurts, and Chloe tries to leave, but he pulls her back to the couch. “I just don’t understand you, Chloe.” She can feel him watching her out of the corner of her eye. “Help me understand.”

Her phone buzzes. On auto-pilot, Chloe unlocks it. Rachel.

_i’m sorry for bailing on u :( i feel really bad. anyway heres some photos we took today, plz don’t be mad_

Pictures of Rachel, beaming at the camera. Sunshine and stone.

Chloe scrolls through them a few times. 

_send me pics of your ink!!! i wanna see it finished xoxo_

“Oh. _Oh_.”

She suddenly locks the phone, drops it. Tyler’s red, sad eyes, analyzing her. Chloe feels like a bug, pinned for dissection, guts spread wide-open.

“Fuck, I feel like such a dumbass. No wonder you never let me eat you out.” He looks away, clears his throat. “You should go.”

“Fine. I was gonna leave anyway.” 

She gets her shit together, stands for a moment, stoned, not sure what she was doing. Tyler steers her towards the door, and Chloe lingers, wanting to leave, but afraid to be alone with her thoughts. 

“Goddamnit, Chloe.” He slams his fist against the doorway. “I didn’t…. want this. I like you. Maybe I’m a total fucking idiot but I--”

“No, Tyler, you’re right. You are a _total fucking idiot_.”

Chloe knows she’s just being hurtful now. An iron wall, barbed and impenetrable. 

He looks right through her.

“You know what? I could be like you and act like a total dick, just push everyone away, but I won’t. You’re already so damaged that whatever I say would completely destroy you, and I’m not that kind of guy.”

Chloe bites her lip. A strained, miserable sound threatens to escape.

He opens the door, and it’s cold outside. He won’t look at her anymore. 

“So just… get out of my house. I don’t want to see you again.”

The door shuts behind her, gentle as a broken bone, and Chloe storms to her truck, a fire igniting under her skin. 

She rips out of his driveway, gets about halfway down the street before abruptly pulling over into a ditch, cutting off another car, horn blaring. She cranks the shitty speakers and _screams_ until her throat feels bloody, until she can’t feel anymore.

Damaged.

Her phone vibrates against her leg, hyperventilating, she reads.

_chloe u arent mad at me for leaving are you :( please text me back_

_i love u girl <3_

Like water rushing over her head, and Chloe stares at the text through blurry eyes. 

Damaged.

She drives home, no music, no thoughts, no feelings, no nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, thanks for sticking with me thus far. We're getting closer to Chloe's low point, but I promise it picks up from there. This fic has ended up being a lot longer and more ambitious than I was really planning for! I hope you're enjoying.
> 
> I also updated the tags on this story, as this fic is primarily about Rachel and Chloe, not Max! Sorry for misleading. I will eventually write some Pricefield, because I do adore that pairing, but this fic is mostly about Chloe pre-game. Sorry for the confusion.
> 
> Find me at highandholy.tumblr.com.


	6. Cruel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe gets into trouble. Rachel abides.
> 
> WARNING: In this chapter for homophobia, depictions of driving under the influence, bullying, physical abuse, depression, the usual warnings apply.

Chloe wakes up to the smell of coffee and sizzling bacon. Joyce calling her name. 

She lays in bed until she can’t stand it any longer, and her arm is killing her, fumbling on a t-shirt because anything else is too painful. She steels herself for the inevitable fight with David about the tattoo, having managed to avoid him the previous night, laying in her bed in total silence, staring at the ceiling.

David’s at the table when she gets there. He looks up over the paper, eyes darting to the raw-looking flesh of her arm. “Chloe,” he starts, slowly letting the newsprint down. 

Joyce sidles up with plates, setting them down, eyes bugging out as she takes a good look at her daughter. “What the fresh hell is that?”

“Looks like a tattoo to me,” says David, spearing a few pancakes onto his plate.

“Chloe!” Joyce covers her hand with her mouth, and Chloe can’t help but grin a bit, because David is just eating pancakes and she can’t believe he’s not yelling at her. Yet. “God, I don’t even know what to say. Ruining your beautiful skin! I could deal with the hair, the piercings, the eyeliner. But a tattoo?”

She turns back into the kitchen, over the stove, and David leans in to look at Chloe’s arm. “What a waste of money. Decent work, though. Not a fan of the skull.”

It’s a little weird that he’s not shutting her down, criticizing her choices, for once. Chloe tries not to think about it. Joyce takes her seat, taps the table, and she diligently shows off her arm. It’s the most attention she’s had from either of them in ages. 

“I just don’t know what to say to you right now, Chloe. How do you expect to get a job with this thing?”

“Oh come on, Mom. Everyone has a tattoo. Nobody cares.”

“If ‘everyone’ decided to jump off a bridge, would you follow ‘em off the edge?” Joyce huffs. “Actually, don’t answer that.”

“I don’t know, Joyce. Plenty of people have tattoos these days. Half my squad did.” David chugs his coffee. “Could be worse. I knew a guy with a nude portrait of his ex-wife all over his back. It was damn hideous. I think he’s a teacher now.”

Joyce considers. “I suppose.”

“Dude, I totally thought you were gonna lose it on me over this.” 

“Call me ‘dude’ again, and I just might.” The clinks of forks and knives, Chloe reaching for the orange juice. “But today’s a good day. Your mother and I were planning on telling you last night; I got a new job.”

“Uh huh. Where?” Chloe asks, through a wad of half-chewed pancake and bacon.

Joyce beams. “You’re looking at the new head of security at Blackwell Academy.”

Chloe tries to swallow, starts coughing. Chokes out a, “What?”

“He starts next week.”

“Better pay, better hours, higher up on the food chain.” David actually smiles, and Chloe has to look away. Too weird. “It’s a good opportunity.”

“I think so, too.” Joyce puts her hand over her daughter’s. “And, Chloe, I think it’s a chance for you two to get a little closer.” 

“Oh, God, Mom, it’s not like we’re gonna eat lunch together and talk about boys.” Chloe sticks her tongue out, Joyce rolling her eyes, pouring coffee.

When she heads to class later that day, she can’t help but get stuck on just how much everything is going to change. It freaks her out. With David at Blackwell, the head of security, no less, there’s going to be a magnifying glass centered over her every move. She hopes it doesn’t burn her. Maybe a thumb to crush her under was all he was looking for in the first place. 

Rachel’s waiting by her locker when Chloe sidles up, and she smiles, looks a little scared. “Chloe! Bitch, you never texted me back. I thought you were pissed.” She leans forward for a hug, and Chloe makes a face, hangs back at a distance. Rachel charges forward, embraces her anyway, and Chloe reluctantly pats her back.

“I was busy, too. It’s cool.”

“I’m really sorry, Chloe. I know how important it was to you.”

“Rach, seriously. Don’t worry about it.” She grins, all cut teeth, shoves her hands in her pockets. “So, surprisingly, David didn’t flip his shit on me.”

“Seriously? I thought he’d, like, throw you into rehab on principle.”

“Yeah, no, Mom was the one who wasn’t cool about it. He actually talked her off the ledge.”

Rachel’s nose wrinkles. “Am I in the Twilight Zone or something?”

“Tell me about it. Fuck, dude, also, he got a job here as a security guard.”

“The fuck?” Rachel slams her locker shut. “Is he trying to totally ruin your life? Like you need a babysitter or something?”

“Eh. I think the idea of being the big man on campus gives him a chub, dude, I don’t know.”

“Sick.”

“Right?”

The bell rings. Students mill about behind them. Someone shoves an elbow into Chloe’s back, and she flips the bird in response. Rachel scowls, doesn’t say anything, gathering her books for her next class.

They part ways, Chloe already late for her health class, Mr. Ferdinand beckoning her towards the desk as soon as she sets foot in the room. Groaning, Chloe approaches, pulling her beanie low. “Uh, hi, Mr. F.”

“Chloe. Although you’re late, I’m glad you decided to grace us with your presence, for once.” 

Mr. Ferdinand smiles tightly, although there’s kindness in his eyes. He hands over a sheaf of paper, a big, red F circled on the top. Chloe can hear other students tittering in the background, and she holds her arm self-consciously. 

“I need a parent to sign this for review. You’re failing.” 

“Seriously? Can’t you just like… give me some extra work to make up the grade or something?”

“Chloe.” His eyebrows lower sympathetically. “You know we’ve tried that. You didn’t finish it. At this point, all I can do is follow the policy set by the district. If I don’t hear back from your mother or father, we’ll have to escalate this to the principal to deal with. You know that I’ve done everything I can to stop that from happening, but you’ve put me in a pretty poor position to help you.”

Chloe snatches the papers from his hands, folds the stack into a crooked half. “Fine.”

“Now go sit down. Class is already started late as it is.” 

She turns down the row of tables, trips over a foot deliberately stuck out by a jock, nailing her sore arm down on the table. “Fuck!” 

A chorus of laughter echoes through the students, and Chloe boots the offender’s backpack under the table, stalking off to the back of the room. 

Mr. Ferdinand offers a scornful look and not much else, clears his throat, starts his lecture.

There’s a note on the desk when Chloe gets to her seat, setting her books to the side. Morbid curiosity gets the better of her, and she opens it, stomach crawling.

_CHLOE PRICE = DESPERATE LESBO WHORE_

Mature. Some snickering around the room, mostly from the jocks. Someone at the Vortex party must’ve said something. 

The blond girl from the balcony...

She tears the note up into little pieces, briefly thinks about setting it on fire. Thinks about setting the school on fire. Herself on fire.

Instead, she lets the pieces drop to the floor, like gentle falling snow.

Chloe puts her head down on her desk, tries to sleep through the lecture, breathing hard through her nose.

The week passes quietly for Chloe. Rachel’s wrapped up in extracurriculars, so she spends most of it alone, trying not to pick off the flaking skin on her arm, lotion and cigarettes, at the skate park in the early spring breeze. Tagging scrap metal in the junkyard, their little hideout, spray paint fumes making her dizzy and disjointed.

Sometimes she sits on her bed and just stares. Thoughts about her dad trickle through, and since the Vortex party, she’s been increasingly unable to stop them. Like a weight on her chest that presses down, her lungs shuddering, compressed and cancerous.

It’s not really that hot, biting anger that gets her, but the slow burn of resentment, coiling up her guts, her spine, as Max continues to forget she ever existed, as David and Joyce leave her alone at the house again, as Rachel’s too busy to answer her text messages, as her dad is _dead_ and he’s never coming back.

He’s not going to be there to see her graduate. He’s not going to be there to see her fall in love. He’s not going to be there to wipe the tears off her face, and it makes her feel even worse that she can’t even cry, like a real person.

Sometimes she tries to tear up, to sob, really tries, but all that comes out are gasps of air, like she’s drowning, in this void of _nothing_ inside of her.

Then Rachel comes for a sleepover on the weekend, and for Chloe nothing is wrong. Rachel apologizes, pretends everything is normal, plays with her hair as they fall asleep.

Chloe thinks maybe Rachel is hers. 

Rachel traces spirals on Chloe’s back, until her skin bears the phantom pains of that endless, aching touch.

* * *

David is at home in a uniform. 

He stands stock-still in the halls with his predatory gaze, and Chloe can’t help but look away as she passes by. 

“Chloe,” he barks, and she whirls to face him, fingers in fists at her side. 

“Can you _not_ talk to me in the halls where someone might see us?” she hisses. “What?”

“Watch it.” He straightens up, and for the first time in awhile, Chloe realizes he’s actually not that much taller than her, anymore. “I wanted to talk to you this morning. Don’t think I can’t tell when you’re avoiding me.”

“I wasn’t--”

“Quiet. I know you’re a student here and it might not be ‘cool’ to have me holding people accountable for their actions and enforcing the rules. That said, I expect you to be a commendable student and an example to your peers.”

She thinks about the failed test crumpled up in the bottom of her locker. The messages from concerned teachers deleted off the voicemail. The detentions, the warnings, the spray paint in her truck.

“Sure, yeah.” 

“Good.” He juts his chin out, crosses his arms. “These kids could use some discipline. It’s chaos in here.”

“Damn, dude, it’s a high school, not Guantanamo.” Chloe jerks her head. “Can I go?”

“Watch your damn mouth, Chloe. You’re dismissed.”

She rolls her eyes, heads off. Decides to skip, out of spite. She smokes a whole pack in her truck, the angriest music she can find cracking through the speakers.

David quickly carves out a space in the hierarchy of Blackwell, jagged and gaping. Word travels that they’re related. 

Chloe finds more notes in her locker as the changes filter in, more students in detention, drugs and alcohol confiscated, parents called. She tries her best to ignore it, Rachel a figment in her mind, texting her, running updates on her day to day, asking if she’s okay. Chloe reads the messages and thinks, that if Rachel were _here_ she’d actually know that, no, Chloe is not okay, has never been okay and will never be okay.

There are no safe places. Home is Joyce cornering her to ask about her shitty grades, about the test Mr. Ferdinand asked her to sign but she never received. School is David staring her down from across the hallway, dark eyes and rigid spine. 

In her phone, lives Rachel, empty promises and sunset eyes.

It’s a Friday night and she’s alone again, and Chloe needs to get out of her house, needs to leave. She gets in her truck, her hands cold, and drives to to the store - she knows she can talk some desperate dude into buying her cigarettes and alcohol. Why the fuck not.

Her phone buzzes as she parks, and she checks her messages.

_heeeey girl!!! i know i’ve been hella lame lately but i’m gonna make it up to you i promise_

She stares at it for awhile, fumbles up a response.

_its cool_

_:)_

_no emoji_

_< 3_

How pathetic. She kicks her way out of the truck, hangs around the front door. Predictably, some old blue-collar guy buys her what she wants, gets a fake phone number in response. 

She takes her six-pack and smokes into her truck, cracks open a beer, drives around aimlessly for awhile. Ends up back at Blackwell somewhere close to midnight, in the parking lot with music, feet up on the dash, third beer cradled in her thighs.

Chloe’s decently tipsy when she decides she wants to walk around, wavers as she lands on her feet, can of spray paint in one hand, fresh beer in the other. She shakes the paint, looks around the parking lot, figures it couldn’t hurt to make her mark. So she knows she’s still there.

Mottled black lines on the tarmac, the cement barriers by the bikes. It’s not particularly neat or artistic or anything, but it feels better to put her thoughts into words, broadcast to anyone who’ll look. 

She crouches down, puts the finishing touches on an outline of a girl. It’s not until she stands back up that she realizes she’s casting a shadow in the headlights of a vehicle she didn’t bother to hear.

Panicking, Chloe whips the beer can off into the bushes, black paint on her fingers leaving inky smudges. She turns, heart fluttering in her chest, wincing as the light hits her eyes. 

“Hands up where I can see ‘em. _Now_.” 

That voice. Oh God. Oh shit, oh God--

Chloe closes her eyes.

“Goddamnit. Jesus Christ, Chloe.” 

David lowers the maglight in his hands, and he’s almost purple in the face he’s so angry. He doesn’t stop gaining on her, and her arm is in his vice grip before she can get a word out, twisting her wrist painfully until the paint can clatters to the ground. 

He holds her arm between them, inches from her face. His voice is cold and even, snarling, “You’d best keep your mouth shut when Principal Wells gets here. You’ll be lucky if you don’t get expelled for this.”

“But I was just--”

“ _Chloe_!” he roars, inches from her ears, “Shut your _fucking_ mouth.”

She buckles away from him, hot, angry tears burning in her eyes. She blinks them away, stumbles, off-balance, as he hauls her towards his vehicle. David plants her ass on the hood of his car, crosses his arms, pacing. She sniffs, keeps her head down. Her arm hurts.

“I can’t believe you’d do something so Goddamn stupid. Defacing property? Do you have any forethought about what this means for you, about what this means _for me_?” 

He shoves his finger in her face, and she slaps it away, only for him to grab her shoulders, shaking her. “You think you know everything, that you can just do whatever the hell you want. You selfish little--”

“Mr. Madsen. That’s enough.”

The fight lights out from under David’s skin, and he spins, Principal Wells half-awake, propped against his vehicle. He clears his throat, approaches the two of them, not quite in a straight line. 

“So, this is our little ‘disturbance’?” Principal Wells looks down on Chloe, hiding her face, and he tuts, wiping his lips. “Vandalization. Do you realize how much this costs to remove, Miss…”

“Price. Chloe Price,” David interjects.

“Miss Price. Right.” He clears his throat, raises an eyebrow. “As in…”

“My wife’s kid, yes.”

“Man, fuck you,” Chloe spits, and David gives her this _look_ that makes her shrink, squirm, a cockroach under his heel.

“Personal issues aside, Mr. Madsen,” he says, setting a palm on David’s chest to put some space between him and Chloe. He wedges himself between them, heavy on one foot. “Miss Price, I hope you understand what the ramifications of your actions tonight mean for your education at Blackwell, and for your future beyond that. You made a very short-sighted decision.”

“Who the fuck cares.” She’s defiant, staring at the ground. “What future?”

“Well, you’re very lucky to have someone as interested in your well-being as much as Mr. Madsen here. Don’t you think?” He wipes his lips, again. Looks at David. “Would you take her home?”

“Sir.”

“No need for that. Ray is fine.”

David nods, mouth a flat line. “Mr. Wells.”

He chuckles. “I’ll see you both tomorrow. Nine, my office, we’ll discuss how to proceed.” 

“Understood.”

Chloe’s manhandled into his shitty muscle car, door locked, closed in on herself in the passenger seat. Her truck, abandoned for the night, David a pillar of rage beside her, the muscle in his jaw surging as he drives.

It’s dead silent aside from the whir of the engine, Chloe paralyzed, waiting for the tirade. It never comes. 

It almost scares her more that it doesn’t.

They pull into the garage, and David is out, Chloe frozen for a moment before fighting the door open, a brief moment of hysteria, parked narrow against the wall. She squeezes around the frame, David’s hand instantly at her back, crowding her through the front door. 

Joyce is nowhere to be found, likely in bed, and Chloe lingers at the foot of the stairs, David towering over her in the dark.

“I hope you understand the God-awful position you’ve put me in.”

She doesn’t respond.

He sighs, hand on his forehead, thumb pressing hard into his temple. “Just… go to your room. I’ll deal with you tomorrow. I can’t even look at you right now.”

“I’m sorry,” she mumbles, before she can stop herself, wishing immediately that she could shove the words back into her mouth. She bites a hangnail instead, tastes paint on her fingers, ink and emptiness.

David looks at her, looks _through_ her, eyes like frosted glass.

“You’d better be.” 

Chloe goes upstairs.

* * *

She stares at the hand-shaped bruises on her wrist as Principal Wells throws the book at her, David looming overhead like an obelisk, sharp and stern. A week of suspension is far from the worst thing she could receive, so she keeps her mouth shut, for now.

Eyes down, Chloe walks back to her truck. Her shoulder clips someone on the way, and she turns, ready to yell, but it’s just Rachel standing there.

“Chloe! Hey, hey, wait, bitch, where are you going?” 

“The house.” She looks away. 

“But don’t you have class?”

“I got suspended.” 

She shrugs, finally looks at Rachel’s beautiful, anticipating face. It’s like the sun hitting her skin for the first time in a century.

“Suspended? For what? What did you do? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Dude, don’t worry about it. It’s not like you even care.”

“ _Chloe_.” 

In Rachel’s eyes, Chloe loses herself. Like she always does.

“Fuck, whatever. Step-shit caught me tagging, took me to the principal’s office, and now I’m out a week of class.” She shakes out her smokes, needs something to anchor herself. “I mean, at least they didn’t call the pigs on me, I guess.”

“Yeah…” Rachel clutches her purse strap.

“Because I’m sure Sgt. Shithead would be just _thrilled_ if he had to live with a convict.”

“Yeah.”

They stand at an impasse, the length of an ocean between them.

Chloe shifts from foot to foot. “I have to get off campus. I’m not supposed to be here right now.”

“Um, okay.” Rachel tucks her hair behind her ear, blue feathered earring glinting in the morning light. “Talk soon?”

“Yeah.” 

Joyce isn’t there when she gets home, and Chloe briefly panics when she finds a note on the counter. It would make total sense that they’d want to kick her out.

Instead, a message.

_Chloe_

_I’m very disappointed with you. We’re having a talk when I get home from work._

_There’s leftovers in the fridge for you._

_Mom_

Chloe allows herself one horrible sound, pulled up from the very base of her, then strikes her fist hard against the edge of the table. Pain blossoms in her hand.

The talk with Joyce later is weird, stilted, and she seems more upset than angry. Chloe can’t find it in herself to fend it off with her usual sarcasm, lets the criticism soak through her. It weighs heavy, like bricks on her chest, she can’t breathe.

The week passes long and lonely. Chloe stays upstairs.

* * *

She doesn’t really do anything for her birthday. Rachel comes over for a few hours, and they hang out in her room, like old times. 

Chloe listens for David at the door.

Rachel bails on coming for her next tattoo appointment, which is fine. She apologizes, has another photoshoot to do, so Chloe goes by herself, hands sweating, anxious.

The artist smiles when he sees her, and makes coffee.

He adds cream and sugar, this time. Chloe drinks it black.

The color hurts worse, and less, at the same time. Perhaps because Chloe wants the pain. She digests it, converts it, like energy. 

A song she knows comes on his XM radio, Chloe singing under her breath, and he makes silly drum noises for her, louder, together, culminating with a solo at the end, shrieking guitars, epic drum solo. 

Chloe kind of laughs, self-conscious, her breath catching when he scours more paper towel over the ink. 

“Fuck, dude. Sorry I’m such a dope.”

“Huge fuckin’ dope. But you shouldn’t be sorry about it.”

“Shut up.”

He grins, all lip piercings and he’s maybe who she wants to be when she grows up.

Her arm aches when it’s over, like a bloated snake, blood red and blue. Another follow-up appointment, almost there. 

Almost there.

She goes to pick up weed from the RV guy on the beach, for the first time in awhile. It occurs to her that she doesn’t even know his name. As she stands outside with her hands in her pockets, waiting, she wracks her brain. Brian? No. Greg? 

He kicks open the door, “Hey”, dog trotting out underfoot, and Chloe goes a little stiff because that thing looks like it could tear open her neck, if it wanted to. She pulls out her cash, approaches, and he slaps the 20-bag into her palm.

“Anything else I can do ya for?”

His eyes are hooded and red, and Chloe feels that tug underneath the surface, that desperation from him.

“Uh, I’m good, thanks.”

He shrugs. She toes the cement with the tip of her boot. He looks around. She coughs. 

“You got somewhere to be? I can smoke you out. I mean, if you want.”

Chloe grins. “Hells yeah.”

They end up in his shitty lawn chairs by the sea, passing a joint back and forth, drinking warm off-brand soda. 

It’s peaceful in the setting sun, watching his dog run after the same ball over and over again, bring it back, running, always running, even though he’s panting, hitting the sand, running again.

Chloe thinks there’s a metaphor there. Maybe.

“So I know this sounds really fucking dumb,” she starts, legs strewn out in front of her. “But I actually don’t know your name. I still have you as ‘Drugs’ in my phone. Heh.”

“You fucking idiot. That’s walking probable cause. Change it.”

“Never said I was smart,” she mumbles, taking another hit, smooth and even. He even made a filter. A real pro. She unlocks her phone. “So then what should I change it to?”

He throws the ball again, into the waves, his dog roaring off after.

“Frank.”

“Frank. Boom, done.”

She reaches over, joint in hand, and he accepts, his fingers stained with nicotine.

A formal introduction.

“It’s funny,” he says, pinching the tip, smoke hazing through his nose, “Most of my clients just call me ‘dude’ or ‘man’. Never occurred to me til now.”

Frank kills the joint with the blackened pads of his fingers, flicks the stub into the water.

“I wonder what I am in their phones.” 

“‘Definitely not drugs’.”

“Fuck off.” He laughs, all stained teeth and gravel.

The sun dips below the horizon, and Frank’s dog drops the ball before them, lies down in the sand.

* * *

Chloe mostly sleeps through her classes for the next week, bored, checking her phone for messages that never come. She almost thinks it’s a hallucination when her phone actually _does_ buzz, so she checks it under the table, pulse speeding in anticipation.

_hey girl heeey so i miss your face let’s catch up tonight if your free. two whales?? 2nite, my treat :)_

Rachel. 

She stares at her phone, re-reads the message a few times, drinking it in.

_yeah sure. i’m down. meet me after last class ill drive us_

_yay!!_

Chloe locks her phone. It feels like something is trying to push against her ribcage, climb up out of her mouth. She grits her teeth, keeps her head down, draws spirals on the edge of her notebook until she runs out of room on the page.

When Rachel crosses the parking lot, later, she’s laughing, talking with a boy with dollar bills on his sleeve. He waves as they part, and she turns, beaming.

Chloe can’t help but smile; it pulls at the side of her mouth, like a hook through her cheek.

Rachel swarms her in a hug, and she accepts, her arms around Rachel’s waist. They rock back and forth, foot to foot, like little kids. Rachel’s hair, the smell of her perfume, the jingle of her earring as she steps back. 

“Okay, _el cap-i-tan_. Lead the way,” says Rachel, gesturing to the truck.

“All aboard the S.S. Shit-heap.” She grins, and Rachel wiggles past her to climb through the driver door, Chloe right behind.

Rachel fills her in on all the juicy Vortex Club gossip on the way, and Chloe’s engaged, listening, absorbing. She can’t help but feel the stories would be better if she was there as Rachel’s partner in crime, laughing at the bullshit rich kid drama together, hand-in-hand.

At the diner, they take their usual booth and Joyce isn’t working today, so Chloe doesn’t have to worry about being harassed, for now.

Rachel pulls out binders and folders from her bag. “Here, I wanted to show you some of my recents. Check it out.”

Chloe sifts through the pictures as their server comes over with menus. She gives Chloe this look, and she mostly ignores it, running her fingers over Rachel’s smile. “Dude, these are great.”

“You think so? That makes me happy.” Rachel looks a little sad, and she leans forward, covering Chloe’s hand with her own. “I know I’ve been busy lately. I hope it’s worth it. I just don’t want to be stuck here forever, you know? With these photos, maybe I can get booked with an agency.”

“Yeah.” Chloe pulls her hand back, picks up her coffee. 

Rachel leans into the booth. “So… what’ve you been doing? Your tattoo looks great, by the way.”

“Yeah, one more appointment and it should be done. Shading, colouring,” she says, looking down at the still-scabbed flesh of her arm, peeking out from the cuff of her jacket. “But doing… yeah, I dunno. Nothing, I guess.”

“Have things been okay with David at home?”

Chloe looks past Rachel’s head. “He mostly just pretends I don’t exist, I think. After I ‘embarrassed’ him by getting suspended or what fucking ever. At least he leaves me the fuck alone.”

“Oh… yeah.” 

Rachel coughs, stirs her cup. Looks out the window.

“So--” They both start at the same time, and stop, and Rachel laughs.

“You first.”

“Okay,” says Rachel, tucking her hair behind her ear. “Chloe, I just wanted to… I don’t know. I want to make sure everything’s okay with you.”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” she lies, and at least has the integrity to look honest about it. 

“Are you sure?” Rachel urges.

Chloe considers. “Well, I never get to see you anymore. But I mean, I have my own shit going on, too, so no biggie.”

Rachel sits there for a moment, then looks down at the table. “Okay… Like what stuff?”

“God, are you trying to make me feel like a loser? Probably not as awesome as photoshoots and doing coke with rich kids.” Chloe chokes, trying to force herself to laugh. “Just stuff, Rach.”

“Are you still seeing Tyler?”

“I wasn’t seeing him, I was just fucking him. And he’s a dick. So, no.”

“Oh.” 

“Yeah.”

Mercifully, the server returns, taking their orders. Chloe burns a hole through the menu with her gaze.

Their interactions are stiff, but Chloe is grateful Rachel at least asked her to hang out. She half wonders if maybe Joyce conned her into it, a pity party for poor, pathetic Chloe. She sinks down into the booth, lower, lower.

When she drives Rachel back to the dorms later, she lingers in the passenger seat, pulling her fingers, biting her lip. “Chloe…” she starts, looks up through the heavy sweep of her mascara, “I’m sorry.”

“Why?” Chloe lights a cigarette, rolls down the window. “I’m not pissed at you or anything.”

“I don’t know… I just. I feel like I should say sorry.” She clears her throat. “I know that I--”

“It’s fine.”

“But--”

“Dude, it’s fine, I don’t care.”

Rachel stares hard at her hands. “You make it really hard to be your friend sometimes, Chloe.”

It’s like a kick in the head. Chloe drags hard on her cigarette, until her entire body is burning, a plume of furious, pungent smoke. 

“So don’t _be_ my friend. You’re barely fucking around anyway. I know you don’t actually give a shit, stop pretending you like me and just leave me the fuck alone.”

“Chloe, that’s so not fair, I--”

“ _Bullshit_. I _know_ you don’t give a shit about me, Rachel.”

Rachel closes her mouth. Opens it again. “Fine, then. Is that what you want? For me to leave you alone?”

Chloe doesn’t look her in the eye, exhales, head in a fog, the rain starting to dribble in through the open window. 

“I don’t care."

“Okay.”

Rachel forces the passenger door open, swears when it jams, slams the door on her jacket when she’s out. She tugs it free, teeth grit, then hauls off towards the dorms, oblivious to the rain, blond hair sticking to her shoulders like armour as she disappears into the distance.

Chloe sits in the parking lot for a hot second. Throws the stick into reverse, spins out, wheels kicking up gravel, and roars onto the street.

Driving as far as the junkyard, she steps out into the rain, thunder reverberating through the mountains, bone shaking, finality.

She makes it to their hideout, lands hard on the makeshift couch. It starts pouring outside, the cold whipping through the concrete room, but Chloe can’t bring herself to care, shaking hands lighting a cigarette.

She can’t help but cry, for the first time in a while, hot tears on her cheeks. It only lasts for a few moments, before the anger sinks its stakes into her, until she feels trapped under her own skin, this _thing_ inside her pushing holes through her muscles, barbs penetrating her flesh.

Chloe picks up the bong next to her and hurls against the wall, glass shattering in an emerald explosion, and it feels _so good_. Chloe breathes hard with exhilaration, vaults to her feet, heads back out into the storm.

She kicks dents into cars, shatters windshields, her hands numb, boots wet, hair slicked to her face. She screams her lungs raw, until the world around her feels like her insides, broken and ravaged, hostile.

Then, it’s just her standing in the rain, among the wasteland, the anger sluicing out of Chloe until there’s nothing left but this Rachel-shaped void inside of her.

And before that, these gaps that her dad left, Max left, cracks left unfilled by Joyce. Damage from David, new and raw.

“Fuck you,” she says to herself, like a mantra, chaining her to the ground. “Fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you_.”

Thunder answers her, lightning creeping across the sky. 

An electric cage, keeping her inside, just barely contained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mr. Ferdinand is a person I grabbed from Chloe's botched report card. Initially I wrote Miss Grant in there, but Chloe didn't take science! Fancy that.
> 
> My writing is coming a little slower as I've been obsessed with MGSV: The Phantom Pain (my first love), but I should hopefully be sticking to my once a week update schedule, still. Hope you enjoy!


	7. Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chloe is honest with herself.
> 
> **Trigger warning** : This chapter has references/depictions of attempted suicide, self-injury. Also, my usual warnings for drug use, alcohol use, etc., apply here.

When she goes to visit Frank the next time she’s out of weed, he’s already got a joint rolled, and he’s kind of drunk, but at least it’s someone who wants to see her. 

They sit in his shitty lawn chairs under the RV’s awning, and it’s a little weird, he’s so intense, but Frank gets on the topic of Blackwell, and it’s relieving to hear about someone who fucked his life up worse than Chloe has, so far. 

“So you got suspended once already, huh. What for?” he inquires, all red eyes and slack lips. He sips a beer, offers a fresh one to Chloe, who accepts with an open palm.

“Tagging. It was fucking stupid.” She smirks, cracks the can. “Who honestly fucking cares about some stupid spray paint? That place looks like shit anyway, needed some decoration.”

“It’s supposed to be an art school, right? They just want to kill all your natural talent, turn it into something marketable for shitty middle America, as all your real creativity just _dies_ inside of you. And you blow your brains out. Like Kurt Cobain.” 

“Yeah, man, maybe. I dunno. I had a friend there who took good pictures.”

“Yeah? Let’s see.”

Chloe hands over her phone, photos of Rachel she’d hung onto. Frank scrolls through, and his face changes, like maybe he’s found something she can't see in the endless lines of her text messages.

“I guess you’re right, Chloe,” he mumbles, handing it back. His eyes are glassy, the sound of the rain ethereal around him. “That girl is… she’s...”

“Yeah.” Chloe looks at the pictures and sighs. “Yeah...” 

She puts her phone away. She wants to delete the photos, but can’t seem to bring herself to hit the button. Can’t seem to let them go.

“Anyway.” She clears her throat, grabs his lighter from the card table, reignites the tip of the joint. “Fuck that school. I honestly don’t even care anymore. It can fucking… I don’t know, get nuked, for all the fucks I give.”

“And yet you still go,” says Frank, picking the joint from her fingers. He blows smoke rings, quickly dissipated by the wind. “You care.”

“Fuck off.” Chloe shoves him. He pushes her right back, and she skids her foot down, almost tilting over in the chair.

He stubs the roach against the table, flicks it off into the rocks. “If you really didn’t give a fuck, you’d really cause some hell. Like, set fire to shit. Break some windows. Really do something to piss that old piece of shit principal off.”

“What did you get expelled for, anyway?”

“What do you think.” He jerks his chin at the eighth on the table, the pills doled out on the tray.

“Right.”

Frank snorts. “If you really are as ‘fuck the man’ as you seem to think, you’d do it. I don’t believe you for a second.”

“Fine. I will, then, Frank!”

“You better send me proof, then, girlie.”

“You can count on it.”

“And let me know how you like those oxys. Lucky I’m such a good guy, giving them to your broke ass for that cheap.”

She pushes to her feet, stands hip-shot. Scores her drugs off the table. “I’ll let you know. Thanks for smoking me out.”

“My pleasure. Now get the fuck outta here.”

Chloe mulls it over, once in her truck. Drives slow, a little too faded to pay attention, and she knows there’s a certain amount of truth to Frank’s words. If she _really_ didn’t care, she wouldn’t be going to school right now; art, the only class she usually manages to attend. Honestly, though, if it was an issue of caring, she’d just off herself and be done with it.

But still, if David caught her vandalizing again, there’d be hell to pay. He still won’t speak to her for the most part, apart from barking orders, angry at her for leaving dishes out, for listening to music too loud, for going out all night, confiscating her cigarettes or her car keys when she back talks. Joyce’s pleading looks. Let’s just all get along. Let’s just act like everything’s fine.

Chloe waits until the last second to saunter into the classroom. The weird Christian girl is in her usual spot in the back, so Chloe makes a point to press her muddy boots against the chair leg, giving her the stink eye under her bangs.

Christian girl moves shifts in her chair, smiles, her sleepy eyes nearly closing. “Sorry. I took your seat, didn’t I?”

“Yeah. Pretty fuckin’ rude, if you ask me.”

“Oh. I’m sorry… I can move, if you’d like to sit here?”

Chloe considers. “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” She tucks her feet under her own chair. 

Papers materialize on her desk, loopy handwriting with doodling in the corners, signed ‘Kate’ at the top. Chloe eyes the girl, and she’s still smiling. “These are my notes from yesterday, if you wanted to catch up. I noticed you weren’t here.”

“Cool.” Chloe’s fingers card over the paper. 

“I hope they help.”

She turns back to her sketchpad, humming, and Chloe’s face heats, as she sinks lower, lower in her chair. She feels like the world’s biggest asshole, to this girl who was just trying to save her skin, with nothing in it for her. Chloe briefly wonders if the girl, Kate, would want some Oxycontin for her efforts. Probably not.

She leans over the table, coughs to get her attention. Kate looks on with those sleepy eyes, calm and welcoming. “Thanks. Uh. For the notes.”

“You’re welcome.”

“And sorry for being such a dick.”

Kate smiles. “It’s okay.” She turns back to her work, keeps sketching.

Chloe stares, for a moment, stomach turning. She wonders what it’s like to be like that, have everything be so simple, so cut and dried. Forgiveness, like in the movies, where everything is easily fixed, no hurt feelings or resentment. 

She sits back in her chair, reads Kate’s notes. They don’t stick, but Chloe appreciates the sentiment.

* * *

There are cardboard boxes in the living room, one afternoon. Joyce is sweating, lifting with her knees, walking to the garage. Chloe opens the fridge and rifles around for lemonade, drinks out of the corner of the jug, watching her mother putter around.

“What’s with the boxes?” she asks, padding into the living room.

Joyce grunts as she lifts, disappears into the garage. “Just, shit-- just putting some things away.”

Chloe pokes around in one of the boxes. “Things?”

Old photo albums and scrapbooks, mostly, it looks like. She opens one of the albums, finds a picture of her tiny ten year old self beaming back, arm slung around Max’s shoulder. It’s jarring to see her face so young. Sometimes she forgets how old she is, now, how much time has passed. She can barely picture Max’s face anymore. 

Joyce returns for the next box, closing up the flaps of cardboard. “Oh, it’s just some stuff I’ve been meaning to put away for ages.” She crowds behind Chloe, smiles down at the album. “Aww, would you look at that. My little baby. And Max, I wonder how she is now?”

She reaches over her shoulder, flips to the next page. William looks back, grinning from ear to ear, and Chloe retreats, busies herself closing another box. Joyce sits down at the table, panning over the pictures.

“Oh, you were such a daddy’s girl. You two were so sweet together.” Joyce smiles, turns the book to show her. Chloe looks away. “You used to play on that swing-set for hours, begging him to push you until it was dark outside.”

Joyce sighs, smiling down at the polaroids. “I miss him.”

Chloe’s fingers seize around the cardboard. “Can you stop?”

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t want to talk about him.”

She smiles, and it’s sad, loss and longing in the sweep of her brow. “Oh, honey. I know it hurts, but--”

“Please. Just-- stop.”

“Chloe…” Joyce closes the album, rising to her feet. Chloe curls in on herself, but her mother pulls her into a hug, even though she’s stiff, pulling away from the touch. “I know you miss him.”

“It’s not fair,” she mumbles, into Joyce’s shoulder, and those arms lock around her in response, tight and warm. 

“I know, Chloe. I know.”

* * *

She’s pretty shitfaced when she hears the sirens. Turns out, being fucking wasted on booze and pills doesn’t lead to the most brilliant decision making. Blackwell burns in her mind. Even if it’s only the flag she actually ignited, the flick of a lighter, flames crawling up the fabric, a petty act done on impulse.

It’s only halfway funny that she remembers to snap a pic for Frank of her little teenage rebellion before she hears cops yelling behind her. Chloe’s shoved to the ground, chin in the pavement, her phone skidding just out of reach. She kicks back, but she’s held still, broad hand on the back of her neck, commanding her to stay down. 

Maybe she just wanted to get caught. She thinks she can hear David, but it all fades to the background as she’s lifted off to her feet, bullied into the back of a squad car. She passes out.

When she comes to again, later, she’s in a holding cell at the station, and there’s vomit down the front of her shirt. Chloe swears to herself, holds her head, pounding, and waits. Waits, and waits, and waits.

Finally, a policeman opens the cell, escorts her out front, where David’s waiting, standing stock-still next to a pasty, dull-eyed Joyce, still in her uniform from a late night shift, her hair like wilted daisies.

The officer holds Chloe by the arm like she’s infectious, then shoves her forward, speaking to David in terms she doesn’t understand. David seems calm, on the surface, but from the clipped tone of his voice, she feels the countdown start.

They stalk out of the police station like a six-legged monster, Chloe wedged between them, rain falling in buckets, drenching her to the bone.

Chloe wobbles on her feet as they get closer to the car. “Am I going to jail?”

No one answers her. She gets into the back seat, shivering. Joyce stares straight ahead, sniffing every few moments. David, impenetrable, unreadable to Chloe.

As they pull up to the house, Chloe’s chest starts to tighten, until she’s almost shaking in her seat. They stay in the car for a moment, no one moving, rain drumming on the hood. Then, Joyce wordlessly exits, the door falling with a heavy thump. 

Just her and David, now, his silence in the front seat speaking volumes.

“Just say something,” she begs, when it’s too much to bear, “I know, I fucked up again. I--”

“If I were _anything_ like my father, Chloe, so help me God.”

David’s hands grip the steering wheel. The tips of his fingers, porcelain white. 

“I’m so fucking stupid, I’m sor--”

“ _Don’t._ ”

Chloe stops. Her eyes squeeze shut, and tears threaten, and she can’t stop them for once. She feels pathetic crying where he can see her, but she can’t stop it, still too fucked up, too high and down.

“I want you to go inside, and I want you to go to your room.”

“W-what are you gonna do?”

“For now,” he starts, eyeing her in the rearview mirror, “I’m going to stay in the car. I don’t want to do something I’ll regret.”

She opens the door, heads into the house, up to her room. She can hear Joyce’s heaving sobs from downstairs. She tries not to think about it. She tries not to think about anything.

* * *

Turns out, there’s not a hell of a lot to do for a high school drop-out.

Chloe spends the next few months mostly laying around in bed, doing endless lists of chores that David leaves on the table in his blocky print after he’s left for work. She cleans gutters, she mows lawns, she organizes cupboards. Bright side, the house has never looked better, even if the smell of bleach hangs around her like a miasma, leaves cracks in her hands.

David still won’t have anything to do with her. She understands his existence through empty bottles left around the house, newspapers with sections cut out, his Blackwell jacket at the door. She only goes out into the garage, his domain, to do laundry, noticing the stacks of canned goods, the folders left on his work desk. She’s tempted to take a peek, but never does, moves soggy clothing from the washer, to the dryer, passing his gun cabinet as she leaves.

The cabinet isn’t locked. Sometimes she makes it as far as touching the handle.

Joyce and David start fighting again, and she knows it’s about her. It’s clear she’s not welcome in her own home any longer, so she tries to just stay there to sleep, eventually, spending her days at the junkyard, hanging around Frank, sad and stoned, staring at her phone.

It never rings, no text message tones, and she isn’t even sure she wants it to, anymore. She doesn’t know what she’d say. Rachel still hasn’t unfriended her on Facebook, at least, so she gets her updates there, in the pictures of Rachel with the rich kids, photo shoots, listens to the songs she posts, even though it’s never as good as the CDs Chloe used to make her.

Sometimes she sits at her computer desk for hours at a time, staring out the window, listening to the same melancholy songs she can’t seem to turn off. Boredom, frustration overtake her. She picks up pens and stabs herself in the leg before she can realize what she’s doing, takes off her pants and presses her fingers into the bruises. It hurts. She’s still there. That’s good, at least.

Chloe puts up pictures on her wall, posters, of people. She wonders what it’s like to be them, what it’s like to have expectations out of life. It’s not like hers is going anywhere.

Rachel’s birthday comes and goes. Chloe writes a text and even thinks about sending it. Deletes her number instead.

She smokes a pack a day, spends too much money on weed. The razors in the bathroom, they look awfully inviting, sometimes, but she always pussies out.

Eventually, Chloe makes it as far as turning the handle. The glass door opens easily enough, and David’s guns are clean, cold metal. There’s such an air of finality about it all, and she knows him well enough that if she even touched one, he’d probably kill her.

She always closes the door.

Joyce is worried about her, that much she can tell. She comes up to her room sometimes, looks at the writing on her walls, while Chloe lies face-down in bed. Sometimes, she’ll sit down next to her, talk about her future. Chloe doesn’t have the heart to tell her that she’s already made plans for it.

She’s alone for the weekend when the hole inside is too big to ignore. 

She finds the key for the padlock in the kitchen, where David’s locked up all the alcohol, gets shitfaced on cheap wine. She opens the bathroom cabinet. Sleeping pills stare back at her. 

Chloe takes about half the bottle before she realizes just what the hell she’s doing. She panics. Makes herself throw up, all foam and partially dissolved capsules. Picks up her phone, dials Rachel’s number, the numbers seared into her memory.

The call goes through to voicemail, and she can’t help herself, babbling, “Rachel. Rachel, I-- I made a mistake. I’m so, I’m so sorry, don’t call me back. I just, I needed to tell you I love you. I’m sorry.”

Everything fades. The bathroom tile is cool, comforting. Her phone is vibrating beside her, and it’s so nice to close her eyes.

“Chloe. _Chloe!_ ”

It’s hard to open her eyes, and there’s blond hair in her face, someone hauling her up by the back of her shirt. Fingers in her mouth, pressing down her throat. She throws up, all over herself, all over the hands, and she’s coughing, struggling, pulling away.

“I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to fucking _do_ ,” and it’s Rachel, gasping for breath, tears in her eyes as she holds Chloe against herself, trembling, helpless. “ _How could you do this to me?_ ”

“M’sorry,” she mumbles, her forehead landing on Rachel’s shoulder. “You came back.”

“Chloe, what did you take?” Rachel’s eyes are golden, and she focuses, it all feels soft. “Chloe.”

“Already threw them up. Sleeping pills…” 

Rachel looks at her, hard, searching, reaches for her phone. Chloe kicks it away. “ _No._ ”

“Then you have to stay awake for me, Chloe.” 

“Mm… kay.”

Rachel wrestles her into the shower, peels her out of her shirt. Helps her wash the vomit off her chest, out of her greasy hair, propped up against her shoulder. Chloe feels like a doll, like she’s being pulled by strings, like maybe she’s already dead and this is all a dream.

She sort of dozes, sees things in flashes, until she wakes up on the foot of her bed, on her side, head foggy, mouth dry. Rachel’s stock-straight at the head of the bed, knees to her chest, and she’s _furious_. Chloe’s stomach convulses, bile rises, but she manages to swallow it down.

“Why didn’t you tell me how bad it was.”

Chloe sits up, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. She still smells like puke, and her hair is sticking up in weird directions. She clumsily swipes her chest, and she’s in another shirt. She doesn’t want to imagine how Rachel must’ve gotten her here.

“Chloe. Fucking answer me. Why didn’t you tell me you needed me? How can you be _so selfish_?”

“Jesus, give me a minute, will you?” Chloe rubs her eyes, she feels like death warmed over, but it’s better than actually _dead_. “How the fuck did you even get in here?”

“I climbed in through your window, asshole. The door was locked.” She sticks out her legs, bruised and cut in places, and Chloe can’t help but choke out a laugh at the mental image of Rachel shimmying up the roof. “It’s not fucking funny, Chloe. You could’ve died.”

“Well that was kinda the point.” She clears her throat. “Rach, don’t worry about it, I pussied out halfway through and puked up the pills. I was probably fine.”

She’s caught off-guard when a pillow nails her on the side of her head. Chloe lurches to the side, grabs the offending pillow, shoving it into her lap. “You’re not allowed to play this off like nothing. Not to me.”

“So… what do you want me to do, then?” Chloe’s lower lip shakes, and she forces herself to put on a tough face, even if all she wants to do is crawl into Rachel’s lap and cry. 

The space between them on the bed so distant and cold, an ocean apart.

“Just-- _talk_ to me. Tell me what the fuck is going on with you, Chloe.”

Chloe pulls her legs closer, crossing them, not sure what to say. There’s a part of her that’s elated that Rachel showed up at all, and another bigger, scarier part of her dreads having to explain herself. She knows it’s her fault, but admitting it is a whole other story.

“I don’t know,” she mumbles, scratching at something on the duvet, “It was stupid.”

“Chloe, why did you try to kill yourself?” Rachel pleads, and her voice cracks, and Chloe feels like sludge, like toxic waste. “Why?”

“Because nobody gives a shit about me!” she hisses, before she can stop the words from coming out, “No matter what I do it’s never good enough to get people to stay and I just can’t figure out how to make _anyone_ care about me.”

Tears on her cheeks, and she can’t force it down anymore, and Rachel crosses the sea for her, fights through the waves, surrounding Chloe in her arms, sucking her back into her orbit. It feels like heaven to be crushed against Rachel’s chest, her heartbeat like thunder, golden hair tickling her cheek.

“I’m sorry, Chloe,” Rachel’s voice is wet, her face is sticky, and Chloe pushes her mouth into the curve of her clavicle, and it’s like coming home after a storm, “You’re more than good enough.”

They slide down in a tangle on the bed, limbs twisting, her head tucked in the hollow of Rachel’s neck, and she’s petting her hair, calming, blue and peaceful and Chloe eventually stops shuddering, stops hyperventilating, breathing slow and even, sinking into sleep.

They doze for what feels like hours, wrapped up in each other, until Chloe has to sneak off to throw up a few more times. Her throat feels like it's wrapped in barbed wire, and she’s scared to set foot into her room again, where Rachel is laid out like a sacrifice, the light of dawn peering through the window, encasing her in gold.

Rachel rolls onto her side as Chloe tiptoes back into the bedroom, kneels on her bed. She smiles, crooks her fingers, come closer, and suddenly it’s okay. Safety, in Rachel’s arms.

Chloe lays down facing her, reaches out to touch her hair, brush it off her neck, and she’s still wearing her earring. Warmth blooms inside of her. “Hi.”

“Hi,” sighs Rachel, sleepy, voice like honey, “What times’it?”

“Dunno.”

“Hmm.” She blinks a few times, snuggles a little closer. “Can I ask you a question?”

Her pulse kick-starts in the base of her throat. “Yeah.”

“What did you mean... when you said you loved me?”

Here it is. Chloe’s lukewarm heart served up for slaughter.

“I…” She trails off, looks past Rachel’s head. Closes her eyes. “Can we just forget last night ever happened? Please?”

“You can’t take away that moment. You can’t just make me forget what you said.” 

“I know.” She breathes in, hard, through her nose. “I just. Fuck. Rach, please don’t make me do this.”

“Chloe,” Rachel smiles. “It’s oka--”

“I’m in love with you, okay?”

She breathes in for the first time. All of that tension, all of that energy, holding that so close to the chest for so long. And now it’s out in the open. Punched out of her, her ribs cracking open, bone shattering, twisted veins and arteries bared.

Once it starts, it flows out of her like lava, spits and fumes, and she can’t stop. “I just, I fucking love you, Rachel. Being apart from you, I didn’t even want to live anymore. I want to be with you all the time, I think about kissing you, and fucking you, and holding your hand and I _hate_ seeing you with guys, I hate it when I don’t have all of your attention, and I know I ask for too much and I’m needy as fuck and I just-- I just--”

Rachel’s arms slither around her like a cocoon, and she isn’t sure what it means, but she lets herself be held anyway. It’s safe here, the smell of vanilla, clean and pure, and Chloe closes her eyes, lets the feelings diffuse out of her like mist, light where they used to be weights dragging behind her, great gashes in the floor.

“I think I always knew.” Rachel’s voice, soft, soothing, like talking to a frightened animal. “I just didn’t know how much. But I’m glad you told me.”

Chloe makes a small, sad sound.

“But I want you to know, I do love you, Chloe. You fucking scared me last night.” She pulls back, so they can look each other in the eyes, and Chloe wants so badly to kiss her. But she doesn’t. “I don’t… I don’t know if I can be with you that way. I’m sorry.”

“I know. It’s-- it’s okay.”

“I just want to be your best friend again. I want to be the person you can tell everything. I don’t want you to hurt yourself anymore.”

“Rachel…”

“Promise me you won’t.” Her eyes, like amber, her namesake, balmy and luminescent. 

“I promise.”

Her heart pumps blood, warm and wasted, bathed in the grimy sunshine of Rachel’s smiling face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yyyyeah that was hard to write. I promise there is a break from the angst coming.
> 
> Sorry for the slower updates! MGSV has consumed my life for the time being. I'm hoping to wrap this fic up before Oct. 20th, when Episode 5 comes out! I can't wait.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to follow me to discuss, I'm around highandholy.tumblr.com. My usual haunting ground.


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